Unstoppable
by owlreader
Summary: That day, everything went wrong. We should never have met. Now that we have, the universe has been changed. Permanently." Bones x OC...maybe. NOT a MarySue. Mostly movie based, but the plot tribbles have been interfering laterly. R&R!
1. Chapter 1: You win some, you lose some

_Hey all, it's me Owly back with a new obsession: Star Trek! So sit back, relax, grab a coke or two, and enjoy the story!!! _

_**Disclaimer: If I really owned Star Trek, I'd be sitting here with Anton Yelchin and Zachary Quinto, laughing, and you wouldn't be reading this. :) **_

* * *

Chapter 1: You Win Some, You Lose Some

Devon was angry - angry with the world and angry with herself. She couldn't believe she'd let herself be talked into such a horrible idea. Starfleet Academy? She didn't want to be a doctor, even though she'd been accepted early - one of 200 med students. She wanted to live her life, have fun, and decide her own future, not be stuck on some stupid ship taking care of the same stupid diseases on some stupid alien planet. Perhaps she could sneak–

The noise of some loud vehicle interrupted the flow of Devon's thoughts. She turned from where she was trying to sabotage the ship's engines to see a young man arrive on a motorbike. It was a very handsome bike, and the boy was too; at least, he might have been handsome if one of his eyes wasn't swelled closed and his lip wasn't split in three places. He sported multiple bruises and dried blood on his chin, as well as an expression that oozed arrogance. Devon watched as he jumped off and surveyed the scene before him. Captain Pike, who had been greeting the recruits as they were loaded onto the shuttle, turned to the man and smiled as if he'd been expecting him. Devon decided she liked the guy already … he reminded her of a boy she had known long ago.

_I__ guess that these engines are harder to booby-trap than those on a car_, she decided, straightening up and wincing. She'd been bent over for a good ten minutes, pretending to load her bag underneath the ship and trying to pull the power chord while she was at it. Sighing, she wiped her hands on her jeans and walked over to the boy.

"Nice ride, for a farm boy," she commented. He gave her a perfunctory once-over. She had a hat scrunched tightly in one hand and a winning smile stretched across her face. She wasn't wearing the red uniform- a good sign. The boy liked rebels.

Devon knew she wasn't ugly. In fact most people thought she was quite attractive. She did have a nice body and an even prettier face that was framed by a sheet of dark brown hair. She never, ever wore her hair up. It was her rule, and she followed it almost religiously.

"I'd say the same to you, on account of your most beautiful figure," he said, smirking. "But there's a captain behind you."

Devon whirled around, and found her gaze resting on Captain Pike. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes skyward.

"Are you here to report to the Academy?" he asked her. She nodded glumly.

"I'm trying to forget."

The boy snorted.

"Well, get on the ship. We're almost ready to leave," Pike ordered her. "I have a few words to say to this young man before we depart."

Now was the moment of truth. _To leave or not to leave?_ That is the question. Well, she had promised that she would give the Academy a month or two trial. If she didn't like it, she could get herself expelled. _But why waste the time?_

"Cadet?" asked Pike. "Please proceed to the ship."

Devon nodded again and reflected coolly that perhaps the whole attending Starfleet thing wouldn't be a waste if she could get to know that guy; she shrugged off the idea as soon as it had come. He reminded her of him, yes, but should she take the risk? He was a real player. She'd seen the interested and almost professional glint in his eyes. No matter how immorally Devon lived her life, she always drew the line at more intimate relationships. She had been given a few opportunities, but had this thing about letting people too close to her. And all that skin to skin contact? She shuddered. Her head hurt for hours if someone so much as held her hand.

Devon walked up the small ramp and into the low-ceilinged cabin, nearly whacking her forehead on the overhang. She felt slightly out of place, considering the rest of the to-be cadets were flaunting bright red uniforms and staring at her gruffness and jeans. There were only three empty seats left, all adjacent to each other and across from a smug looking black girl. Devon thought for a moment, then chose the one furthest to the left and closest to the exit. She strapped herself in, pulled her antique baseball cap over her eyes and leaned back. Maybe she could sleep and wake up to find this was all some stupid (yet terrifying) dream....

"Hey, beautiful," said a familiar voice. "Mind if I sit here?"

The cap was removed from her eyes and she found herself staring up at the boy with the bike.

"There's no other place, so I guess you'd better sit down." Devon grinned at him, and he grinned back.

"Thanks."

He carefully placed the hat back on her head, and Devon thought she felt his fingers trail across her cheek for a few moments longer than necessary. She flinched as if he had shocked her, but no one noticed. The boy sat and began struggling with the complex structure of buckles and straps.

"I'm Jim, by the way. What's your name?"

"Don't tell him," said the African American girl. "If you value your sanity."

Jim looked up, and smiled. "Hey Uhura, long time no see. Still withholding first names?"

"Yes. And if you know what's good for you you'll stop aggravating the poor girl." She shifted in her seat and made a point of looking out the window on the other side of the cabin.

"I'm Devon," said Devon. Uhura let out a puff of air between clenched teeth.

"Well, Devon, you have amazing eyes," said the boy, leaning so close that his own eyes were mere inches from Devon's.

Devon smirked. "How many times has that line worked for you?"

Jim pretended to pout, but said, "14 to date. When you and I get to know each other a little better, it'll be 15."

Devon was about to say something smart-alecky back when a rather loud disturbance interrupted their conversation. A dingy, bedraggled, and unshaved man was being forced out of the bathroom by a short and squat female officer.

"You need a doctor!"

"Dang it, I AM a doctor! I think I know what's good for me!"

"Sir, you must take a seat now. For you own safety!"

"I had a seat...in the bathroom! With no windows!"

Devon chuckled and shifted in her seat. The guy was hilarious, in a dry, sarcastic kind of way.

"I suffer from aviophobia- fear of dying in something that flies."

The commander lost her patience then. "Sir, you will sit down or so help me I'll make you sit down myself!"

She stalked off. The man sat down on the other side of Jim, grumbling. He looked at them, looked down, then looked back up.

"I may throw up on you," he told Jim, eyes growing wide. He looked rather insane. Devon caught a whiff of his breath- straight alcohol. He'd been drinking his fears away. _This is my kind of guy. Who else would drink it up at oh-eight-hundred, much less have the audacity to drink on a Starfleet ship? I bet even Jim didn't bring alcohol on board. Come to think of it, I didn't either...._

"Go ahead," Devon said. "Worse has happened."

"Speak for yourself!" protested Jim.

"That's rich, coming from a guy who looks like his face went through someone's digestive tract."

"Whatever."

They sat for a moment, pondering the calamities that might befall one in space.

"I think these things are pretty safe," said Jim at length. It sounded as if he were reassuring himself, not the panic attack prone person sitting next to him.

"Don't pander me, kid," said the guy. Devon noted that he had a Southern accent. She guessed it flared with panic and stress. "One tiny crack in the hull and our blood boils in thirteen seconds! A solar flare might crop up and cook us in our seats! As if that's not bad enough, wait 'til you're sitting pretty with a case of Andorian shingles; see if you're so relaxed when you're bleeding from your eyeballs! Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence!"

"Um, I hate to break it to you," Jim cut in. "But Starfleet operates in space."

"Unless you're a masochist," added Devon. "Then everything would make perfect sense."

"I've got nowhere else to go," explained the guy, trying to strap himself in. He was fumbling and shaking. Devon sighed and leaned over Jim, who caught a whiff of some tangy perfume coming off of her skin. She adjusted the straps on McCoy's legs, snapped the buckles over his chest, and secured the armrests. The man stiffened.

"Geez, relax," Devon sighed. "I'm just trying to help."

She sat back.

"It's okay sweetheart," said Jim. "You were fine just the way you were. I had a good view. While you're at it, I wouldn't mind if you adjusted my seat belt too."

He raised an eyebrow while Devon looked down at her slightly low cut shirt and blushed slightly.

"You're such a pervert," she muttered grumpily.

"I'm sick of womanly help. The wife took the whole danged planet. Space is the only place left to go," said the paranoid guy, as if he were continuing a conversation. Jim and Devon were momentarily confused.

"And so here I am. All I've got left is ma' Bones." He seemed to have gotten something off his chest. He relaxed, but only slightly, and pulled a small flask out of his pocket. He took a swig, then offered it to Jim, who was eyeing the bottle with a disbelieving (and thirsty) look.

"Thanks," he said, taking a swig. Then another. And another.

"Leonard McCoy," said the guy. Jim handed the bottle to Devon, who shook it slightly to see how much was left. Jim had swallowed about half, by the looks of it. She took a small sip and immediately realized why: it was very, very good. McCoy sighed, as if he were mourning the loss of his precious alcohol.

"James T. Kirk. Call me Jim."

"Devon."

"No last name?" asked McCoy

"Never had one."

"Oh."

"You're drinking?" Uhura cut in, aghast. "How are you going to explain it to the administrators of the Academy when you arrive stoned?"

The three exchanged glances and shrugged.

"One hurdle at a time, baby," said Jim.

* * *

The ride had been interesting. McCoy hadn't been joking when he'd said he was going to throw up. He did. Projectile vomiting and everything...all over Uhura. Needless to say that put her in a pretty bad mood, even though Devon and Jim found it hilarious. But then Devon's medical side kicked in and she ordered one of the flight attendants to clean up the cadet across from them. She got up, found a medical kit, and came back, armed with a hypo and quite a few liquid filled bottles.

"Do you have a headache?" she asked, lifting up his eyelids to see if his pupils were dilated.

"Gerroff!" he complained, wiping his mouth. "Dang it, leave me alone!"

"I'm a doctor. I know what's good for you."

"I am too! I think I know better, seeing as you're a kid with a syringe and no know how. How old are you, twelve?"

"Twenty-one."

"I'm twenty five. Ha, you lose. Get off me."

He vomited again, this time into a bucket. Devon exchanged highly amused glances with Jim, who was looking at McCoy with a slightly envious gleam in his eye, as if he envied his sickness...or his being fussed over by a pretty girl.

"No more alcohol for you at any rate. Did you drink that on an empty stomach?" she continued anyway, seemingly unperturbed by the man's gruffness.

"What's it to you?" gasped the groaning man.

"Just trying to help!"

"You're too danged helpful. Go flirt with player-boy, sweetheart, and leave me my pride."

"Lucky for you," she said, ripping a piece of fabric from Jim's shirt and instructing him to wipe Leonard's cold and clammy forehead. "But we're not dating. He's too loose for me."

"Hey!" cried Jim. "Look, confine the clothing removal to a bedroom, will ya? I like you, but I'm not ready for a serious relationship yet!"

"Yeah yeah," Devon said, rolling her eyes. "Because I'm definitely going to try that someday."

* * *

"You are _so_ my kind of girl," enthused Jim. They had just gotten off the shuttle. McCoy was propped up between the two of them and Devon had just suggested they go off and find the nearest bar. "Are you sure you don't want to spend some quality time with me once we're settled in?"

"No, Jim. Don't even ask me again or I'll drop kick your sorry hide from here to Houston."

"All Starfleet Academy students, report to the admissions office before noon," Captain Pike announced over a loudspeaker. "You'll receive your assignments and rooms. Do not be late. Orientation tomorrow, and classes the day after. Pike out."

Devon checked her PADD that was stashed in her front pocket. "It's almost ten. We've got time."

Both men looked at Devon.

"What?" she asked. "I don't want to be here, all right?"

"Neither do we," agreed Jim, but McCoy was more curious. After all, the girl had just taken care of him for an hour, and though he had pretended to hate it, it was actually kind of nice.

"But you signed up. You said you had pre-admission to the medical school," Leonard said. "Why would you be here for any other reason besides a last chance or..."

He looked sideways at Jim. "Pathetic-ness?"

"Um, where do you think my bag is? I swear I loaded it the cargo bay..." mumbled Devon, changing the subject uncomfortably.

"Devon," said Jim in mock seriousness, "as your friend of almost two hours, I order you to tell us why you're here."

Devon cracked a smile and pulled her small duffel bag from underneath a pile of other various bags."Listen," she said softly. "You guys are nice. But my story is too gruesome, even for weathered ears like yours."

"C'mon," said McCoy, trying to stand up by himself. "I told you about my danged shrew of an ex wife. Whatever you say can't be worse than that."

Devon clapped the two men on the shoulders. McCoy winced at the blow, but said nothing. "Ya think?"

They laughed, grabbed their luggage (actually, Jim grabbed Devon's, Devon hit him and McCoy groaned at their immaturity) and were off towards the Academy.

* * *

"Devon, Devon, Devon," said the attendant, running a practiced finger down a list of names on a PADD. "I don't have you down here. What branch did you say?"

"Medical. And Devon is my first name. I don't have a last."

"Oh," exclaimed the attendant. "OK, that's better."

He found her name, and gave her directions to her new room. "Your roommate is..." He consulted the screen in front of him and frowned. "Hm. That's odd. Usually we arrange rooms by species, but here...And you're obviously human..."

"What's that supposed to mean?" muttered Devon. "I'm not that weird."

The attendant didn't answer, rechecking the data. "Very strange. Well, Ms. Devon, it seems as if you have a Vulcan in your room. Her name is T'pal."

Devon's eyes grew wide. "A Vulcan?"

Jim and McCoy overheard her gasp. "Whoa, you got a Vulcan chick in your room?"

"Vulcan? Have fun with the green blooded computer," McCoy added.

For some reason, Devon reached up underneath her hair and began tugging at her left ear thoughtfully. Her eyes glazed over a bit, and her mind seemed to be light-years away.

"Have you met any Vulcans before?" asked the attendant interestedly. "They can be difficult at times."

He waited politely for an answer, but Devon made no move other than a slight crease of her forehead.

"Miss?"

Still no response.

"Devon?"

"What?" she asked, coming back to the present. "Oh, yeah, I've met quite a few of them. They're so....difficult. Is there any way to switch rooms? I'll do anything!"

Jim looked up, puzzled. _Why's she so keen on getting rid of the Vulcan girl?_

McCoy was thinking the same thing. _That's weird._

"No, I'm sorry but switching is not allowed. You might be able to find someone willing to trade, but you didn't hear that from me."

Devon heaved a sigh. "Great. Now what?"

Jim looked at his room assignment. "Hm...left wing, room 487. Roommate...Leonard McCoy."

He grinned at the disbelieving doctor next to him.

"Let me see that," snapped McCoy, grabbing the paper. He read it once, twice, then three times.

"Oh no," he moaned. Devon laughed delightedly.

"Don't worry, Leonard old boy. I'm sure this is the start of a beautiful friendship," Jim said.

"Really?" asked McCoy. "Because I'm sure this is the start of a disaster."

"No it won't, Leonard, you have my word," said Jim, holding two fingers up like a cub scout. "Hm...Leonard. We're going to have to come up with a nickname for you. 'Leonard' is way too long. What were your parents thinking?"

* * *

They split up, making plans to meet up in front of the boys' dormitory at 12:30. Devon plodded towards her building, hesitant to meet her new roommate. She didn't really feel like sharing her room with someone who could read your head just by touching your hand.

It took her twenty minutes to get to her room on the fifth floor of the dorm, which was pretty amazing considering it was only a three minute walk. She reached her room, number 508, and stopped outside her door. She took a breath....and stood motionless for about five more minutes.

Devon finally mustered enough courage to open the door. It hadn't yet locked itself because both of them had not entered the room yet. They'd have to figure out pass codes and stuff, then change them every week. Stupid Starfleet regulation.

She stepped across the threshold. The room was standard, with a bathroom to the direct right and two beds at the end of a short hallway with a dresser opposite each bed.

"Hello?" she called, praying that her roommate would not be there yet.

"Greetings," said a voice with the unmistakable Vulcan tinge. Devon's stomach plummeted. "I am T'pal. What is your name?"

T'pal appeared around the corner. She was Vulcan all right- pale, almost greenish skin, pointed ears, arched eyebrows... _What a nightmare._

"I'm Devon," said Devon through clenched teeth. She moved to the untaken bed and put her bag down, took out her clothes, and shoved them in her dresser.

"You are shaking and have stiffened your jaw. Are you cold?"

"No."

"Are you frightened?"

"What the heck would I be scared of?"

"I do not know."

Devon sighed. "Listen, um, T'pal, I'm kind of a private person. I figure that Vulcans are too, right? I don't want to be rude or anything, but I...like to be alone a lot."

It wasn't strictly a lie, but it wasn't strictly true either.

"I understand. My people are very much like yours. I thank you for telling me now as it will save many complexities in the future."

"Yeah...right. Okay."

There was an awkward silence as T'pal watched Devon settle down. Devon was very conscientious of her roommate's silent observation, and she went about her business as quickly as possible while trying to think of some topic to talk about that would alleviate the quiet.

"Oh, we need to come up with some sort of pass code. What should we do this week?"

"There is no need to string numbers together. I have created a list for the next few weeks."

She pressed a few keys on her PADD, transferring the information to Devon's own. The first code was seven digits long.

"And I have programmed the lock to react to these numbers."

"Um, thanks, I guess."

"It was not an issue."

There was another silence, thankfully broken by Devon's communicator whirring and beeping. Muttering a quick "'scuse me," she hurried out of the room.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it worked!" Jim's voice crackled from the speaker.

"Um, what?"

"Well I forgot to get your comm info, so Lion and I contacted the databases and found it. I was convinced that it was wrong, though."

"Lion?"

"Yeah, I was going to shorten his name to Leo, you know, Leonard, but that was too boring. Lion...leo...lion...leo...you get it? Like the constellation. Never mind about that, though. It's old news. How do you feel about a night of amazing things?"

She laughed into the handset. "You sure are eager, aren't you? One smooth talking farm boy."

"That's me. Anyway, you up for it?"

Devon walked down the hall and summoned the lift. "How 'amazing' are you talking here?"

"I thought we could drag Lion along for the ride and celebrate our first night here with a few drinks."

"Celebrate? Try 'forget' or 'escape from.' I hate this place already."

"That's why I called, sweetheart. You seemed down. Good old doctor Jim knew exactly what you needed."

"Don't you dare sweetheart me, James Kirk."

"Fine. What else should I call you?"

"Dev is fine."

"Dev, then."

"What's Lion say?"

"He says he'd be glad to accompany two kids such as ourselves to a bar."

The lift arrived and Devon stepped into it. "Ground floor."

"Okay," she said disbelievingly. Everything she had learned about Leonard McCoy in the past two hours did not add up to such a civil answer. "What did he really say?"

"I'd tell you, but I have a policy of not cussing in front of ladies."

"That bad?"

"You better believe it. Lion here has a pretty foul mouth. I offered to wash out his mouth with soap, but he refused."

"Let me talk to him."

There was a small burst of static, then McCoy's voice crackled through the speakers.

"Leonard McCoy here. Don't you dare try calling me anything different."

"Fine," said Devon, making a mental note to come up with another nickname for the doctor as soon as she could. "Listen, please come with us to the bar. It'll be fun."

"Girlie, my idea of fun is not with you or the idiot I'm forced to call my roommate."

"But I need your help."

"Help doing what? And if you say anything like I think you're going to say – "

"No," said Devon swiftly, her voice strained with barely contained laughter. "It's just that...I have a feeling Jim's not going to be able to walk home by himself tonight."

McCoy grunted with the smallest hint of humor. "That kid has already downed half of my personal supply already. I had to drag him away from my bag by the throat. He'll be dead to the world before you get to the freaking bar."

"Then you should come with us. Here, I'll buy you enough to keep you in stock of whatever you want for the next month. How's that sound?"

"No."

_Hm. Time to change tactics._

"How long do you think it'll take Jim to pass out, if he does at all?"

"Half an hour."

"I'll bet you ten credits it'll be forty-five minutes."

"Like...gambling?"

"Yes, you moron."

"Darlin' I'm a doctor, not a billionaire."

"That's fine. It's all in good fun."

"I don't think so."

_Okay, so that didn't work. Geez, he's making me not want him along after all. Last ditch tactic._

"Fine, you win. Just do me a favor, will you?"

"What?" asked Lion suspiciously.

"Make sure Jim gets back without injuries, OK? If he doesn't get back to his room, then I probably won't either. Just call security, they can sort it out. I don't like the looks of the people around here. Who knows? They could be hooligans."

Dev eyed the people around her suspiciously as she walked out of the lift. Most of the boys she saw were highly muscled and looked more than capable of handling themselves in a fight. More than one girl had a mean, squinty look about the eyes that immediately marked them as people to be avoided.

Devon heard a sigh on the other end. _Bingo._

"You're just like my ex. Always conniving… but my pride won't let me allow a young woman to walk into an unknown place with an idiot like Jim by her side."

"Good. I'll be right over. Room 508?"

"Unfortunately."

"OK, see you soon."

"You're a demon, you know that? An unstoppable force of nature. You're _weird_."

"Thanks. I don't usually receive such lovely compliments."

She hung up. _Maybe Starfleet won't be so insufferable after all…_

* * *

_Love it? Hate it? Did your eyes burn as you read it, or did you find your heart singing with joy at the amazing prose? Please tell!!! Reviews = happiness! _

_-Owly_


	2. Chapter 2: And so it begins

_Hello again! I'm so happy I got the reviews I did! To everyone who reviewed: Thank you! To everyone who put me on their favorite author/story or author/story alert: double thank you! To those who did both: YOU'RE THE BEST!! :) _

_A note of thanks: to my beta, Unveiled Creativity! The best ever!!! _

_Disclaimer: You really think I own Star Trek? I think you need your head checked out. _

_Enjoy the chapter!! :D_

_Sorry for my mistake, people. My computer hates me. :) _

* * *

Chapter two: Two years, eleven months later

That first night out had been a success. Even though McCoy, (who reluctantly answered to Bones and Lion after a month or so of Devon and Jim's company) grumbled and groaned, he enjoyed the night in spite of himself. They did regret their choices of fourth rounds when the next day came about, and with it, massive headaches and nausea. But it was worth it because the three misfits found something they had never really had before: friends.

From then on, the threesome were virtually inseparable. Dorm rules, classes, and curfews did not seem to hold any sway over Jim or Devon, even though McCoy frequently referenced them when lecturing on why they shouldn't be breaking the rules. Classes didn't seem to pose any real problem to any of them either. Bones soon revealed himself to be a highly gifted doctor and dedicated to his work (though he did scare some of the interns silly. Devon found this highly amusing.) Dev herself had arrived with almost no medical expertise when it came to injuries and diseases one might find in space, but brought a fierce determination to her studies, and quickly grew to love the work both she and Bones did. Though she would never admit it, Dev was highly dedicated to her patients. Jim...well, Jim was Jim. He pretended like he didn't care for anything but girls, but once surprised both McCoy and Devon by pulling an all-nighter before an exam in his beginner physics class.

The teachers referenced the threesome as "Them" with a capital "T." Though some of the professors and older cadets would not like to admit it, the duo of Jim and Devon was bad enough; they were rowdy but intelligent and could work with amazing diligence and skill, but almost would never do such a thing. They were not supposed to have classes with each other, having different majors and all, but managed to hijack the system and get all their electives together (technology, hand to hand combat skills, and 21 century history, just to name a few.) They habitually hacked computers, poured foul smelling chemicals over each other, insulted one another, criticized others with alarming harshness, and played pranks. More than once they had sabotaged each other's rooms (much to T'pal's distaste) and could almost always be found converged in one dorm or another with a plot in full swing.

With Leonard McCoy, it was much worse. He actually brought some foresight and clear thinking to their pranks. He usually never took part in them, but sometimes Dev could persuade him to give a bit of advice in areas where she or Jim lacked experience, though there weren't very many areas of rule-breaking they had not taken part in before. It seemed from the outside that the three were the best friends anyone could ever meet. They did everything with each other (except "sleep" as Jim put it. They held sleepovers traditionally, though they never "did anything." Jim informed his two buddies that there was a rather broad line between "sleepovers" and "_**sleep**_overs.") and even had birthdays within days of each other. But there was something held back –they all felt it. Devon was sneaky and suspicious. Whenever someone mentioned her past, she would say something shady and change the subject. The other two didn't know why she kept it from them, only that she did and that it revealed her lack of trust in them. Of course, they didn't put that into words. It was too feminine to discuss emotions with others.

* * *

Devon opened her communicator and said, "Devon to Jim Kirk." The little machine whirred for a moment, then there was silence. An electronic blip buzzed for a moment and Jim Kirk's voice spoke into the microphone.

"Urgh...."

Well, maybe spoke is too specific of a term.

"Jim?"

"Hello, darling."

From day one, he had always called her by some pet name. He didn't like her in that way, not after he had attempted to seduce her on one occasion, and had wound up in the hospital with various injuries and abrasions. So the terms of endearment had become a joke...of sorts.

"Hey Jim."

"Um Dev...it's two in the morning. Is there a problem?"

"Yeah. T'pal kicked me out."

"Again?"

"Yeah. Sorry."

"What happened? I didn't know Vulcans kicked people out of rooms that – ," he yawned hugely and static erupted on Devon's end "often."

"She said she needed to sleep and politely said, 'If you will not refrain from playing that music so loudly that the beings in the room adjacent to ours hear it, I shall lodge a complaint to the administrators.'"

"So you left."

"Yeah. What could I do? One more complaint this quarter and I'll be kicked out."

"Why didn't you just turn off your music, or I don't know, turn it down?"

"I couldn't sleep."

"Again?"

"Look, will you let me in or not?"

"Where are you?"

"Outside your room."

Devon heard the sounds of someone yelling, a thump, then footsteps. There was a click, and the door opened. She saw McCoy standing there, bleary eyed and tousle-haired. She hugged him spontaneously, wrapping her arms around his midsection. He sighed and frowned down at her.

"Thanks, Bones."

"Oh no problem," groaned the zombie-like doctor. "Just come barging in at all hours of the night. I don't mind."

"I'm glad you feel that way." Devon leaned her head against his chest, listening contentedly to her friend's reassuring heartbeat for a moment. Lioncoughed, unsure what to do, and she stepped away, flushing slightly.

"This is the third night in a row. Why don't you just move in?"

"I wish I could. It would make it a lot simpler. Then I wouldn't have to hijack the lock so I can write "I'm an idiot" on your forehead and "I'm drunk" on Jim's face. You could just give me the code." She had done this a few weeks previously. McCoy and Kirk had been forced to walk around with the logos for three days until they washed away.

"I still say that you need another hobby."

"Making you look like a fool is the best pastime ever, besides pranking Jim of course. Are you going to let me in?" Devon asked. She placed her hands on her hips and glared at him. He didn't even flinch.

"No. Go ask someone else. Anyone else. I don't care. What's his face from down the hall might be interested in a little nighttime visit from you."

Devon pushed her way past the doctor and into the room anyway. The familiar gross smell of Jim assailed her nostrils: sweat, beer, and his nasty aftershave. She coughed and moved quickly over to Lion's side of the room where his cologne covered the worst of Jim's stench.

"Why do you always have to play music so loud to get to sleep anyway?" asked McCoy, yawning and stretching.

"You guys chase away the bad dreams, OK?"

McCoy frowned. He wasn't sure whether she was joking or not. He decided to leave it be and watched as she pulled a pillow from his bed and put it on the sofa, got a spare blanket from the closet, then settled onto the couch.

"Why isn't Jim awake? I was just talking to him."

"He fell asleep right after ordering me to let you in. It's what I'm planning to do when you shut up."

"You two are no fun. There used to be a time when you welcomed me in here with open arms and a drink."

"Go to sleep, Dev."

"Okay."

* * *

_"Hey Devon, why is your hair always like that, huh? Why're you always weird, huh?"_

_"Haha, the weirdo is cry-ing!"_

_"Look at her, boys, I'll bet if you cut her, her blood won't be red! Who wants to try?"_

_"No! Get away from me!"_

_They had a knife, a long, sharp knife. Who had given children such an ugly weapon? Their parents. Why? To kill her. Kill her? Yes, of course. It's a normal pastime for children, isn't it? Killing people they think are different...._

* * *

Dev woke up screaming. She did not dream often, and most of her dreams were fluffy and filled with calculations, medical problems, Jim, and Bones. She had not dreamed that particular dream in many years.

"DEV! DEV IT'S OKAY. It's alright. I promise," said McCoy, shaking the girl awake._ Shhh...it's okay Dev, it really is. I'm here. Shhh...._

"No!"

"Shhhhh...."

"NO!"

_When softness and kindness don't work, revert to shouting and threats._

"DEVON! SHUT UP!"

That quieted her down immediately, though it started a flow of tears down her cheeks.

"Now look what you've done, lover-boy," said Jim, yawning and walking over. "And you wonder why I get all the ladies."

Kirk sank down onto the couch beside Dev, gently picked her up and let her cry onto his t-shirted shoulder. Bones looked downtrodden, but sat on the other side of their friend, awkwardly patting her sleeve-covered arm.

"S-s-s-sorry," she said thickly.

"I thought you said we chased the bad dreams away," said McCoy. "Not invited them in."

Devon choked a little. It might have been just a sob, or a simply small laugh.

"You do....usually."

There wasn't anything the two boys could think to say to that, so they remained silent as the girl between them sobbed herself out. When she was through, she sat up weakly and offered them a watery grin that they saw vaguely in the pre-dawn light.

"Tell me what the dream was about," ordered Lion.

"I can't."

"Listen darlin', I took a few psych classes last year. Keeping it bottled up is not good for you mental health."

"And I need my beauty sleep," added Jim.

"I don't see why it bothers you so much, Kirk," said Dev. Her voice was still choked. "You spend half your nights in someone else's room."

"I think I'll have to see what I can do if this is going to be the arrangement every night. Maybe you should too."

"Ugh, no."

"Oh, that's right. You'd rather be in here with McCoy."

"Ew NO!" she sniffled, swatting him on the arm. It was halfhearted though, and both guys could see it.

"Yes you dooooo," sang Jim. "Our little Dev is growing up, Lion! She's in luuuuuuuurve!"

McCoy suddenly felt very awkward.

"Don't listen to him, Lion," mumbled Devon.

McCoy sighed. _Typical. How did she get Jim to say that? We were on the verge of a breakthrough! I bet if she just loosened up and told she wouldn't wake up at night anymore. Then I could sleep... But she's so good at getting people off topic it isn't even funny..._

"Bones?" it was Dev's voice again, out of the dark. "Listen, if you want to know so badly..."

_How did she know?_

"I guess I'll have to tell you."

_Then maybe we could get some sleep around here. Plus, I'm worried._

"But not today."

Jim was getting uncomfortable with all the mushy-gushy talk. He sighed and got up.

"What time is it?" he asked the clock on his bedside table.

"Six thirty in the morning, sir," came the automated reply.

"Right," he said. "We can get in another half hour sleep before classes."

So saying, he plopped himself on his bed and was asleep in nanoseconds. McCoy and Devon both raised their eyebrows, their expressions identical masks of annoyance.

"I'm not waking him up," said Dev, settling back onto her pillow. She desperately hoped the dream had been a fluke, that it would never come back again.

"Me neither," said McCoy, pulling Devon's blanket up under her chin before giving any thought to his actions. He stopped, surprised at himself. Dev looked surprised too, but not in a bad way. "Night."

"G'night, McCoy. Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite."

"Yell if you need anything."

"Will do."

Silence descended upon the room again. They didn't bother waking Jim up in the morning for breakfast.

* * *

The next day, Kirk took the Kobayashi Maru for the first time. Tired and grumpy from the previous night's escapades, plus a blinding headache behind his eyes, he had not only failed, but failed spectacularly.

"DEVON I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!" he shouted, coming up the girl's dormitory hallway. "WHERE ARE YOU?!"

He stopped outside what he thought was her door and proceeded to bang on it with all his might until someone opened it.

"What?" said the someone standing in the doorway. It was...a girl. But she had green skin and red hair. Jim stopped for a moment, confused. Then he realized his mistake. He was banging on the door opposite his friend's.

"Why hello," he said, trying to be suave.

"Hi," said the girl, blinking flirtatiously. "What's your name?"

"No," said Jim, leaning casually against her doorframe. "The question is, what is your name? Angelic? Heavenly?"

"No," she giggled. "It's Gaila."

"Why then, I'm Jim," he said. "Listen, sweetheart, I'm in the middle of something right now. Give me a ring in a day or so, and I'll see what I can do about getting to know you a little better."

She giggled again. "Sure thing, handsome."

Jim grinned and Gaila closed the door. "Gaila," he muttered to himself. "Gaila. I can remember that."

Then he remembered why he was in the building. _Right. I'm going to kill Devon._ Jim took a minute to note the room number, and turned around. He was in front of Dev's room.

"DEV OPEN UP NOW!" he shouted again. He banged and banged until–

"YOU HYPOCRITE WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" Devon shouted in his face. She was wearing a short sleeved t-shirt. He grabbed her arm, his hand coming in contact with her skin, then gawked as she doubled over in pain.

"What are you doing now?" he growled.

"Let go," she gasped. Realizing that his friend was in actual agony, Jim relinquished his vice like grip. Devon staggered upright, and sagged against the wall.

"What's with you?" asked Kirk, stooping down to look her in the eye, his anger momentarily forgotten. "Are you okay?"

"No, you dummy, do I look like I'm okay?" she hissed at him. "How many times have I told you not to touch my skin?"

"Are you an alien? Is that the big secret?"

"No, I'm not an alien."

"I think you are. Who else has sensitive skin? Unless you're a genetic mutant. Have you been playing with uranium lately, young lady?"

"I told someone why once, a long time ago. That's when this happened."

She pointed to a scar about a footlong that ran the length of one arm. Jim raised his eyebrows.

"I sense a story in the telling. But for now, can I shout at you?"

Devon covered her ears, then nodded.

"WHAT THE **** WERE YOU THINKING?" he yelled, waving his fist in the air for emphasis. He continued to rant for about a minute, somehow blaming his pathetic failure on his friend. Then, after the worst of it is over, Devon said gently,

"Jim, you were going to fail anyway. No one can beat that thing, they have some computer program running it."

"I WAS GOING TO!"

"How do you know?"

"I have to. It's the one way to be promoted to Captain with no strings attached."

"Except for the small problem about the test being rigged."

"Yeah, except for that."

Devon smiled, and stood up. "Well, I'll be quiet from now on."

"I doubt it."

"You know me. Always a wild card."

"Sure. You practically live at the med center now - the last time we did something fun together was last week."

"I know. It's boring, but I have a lot of work to do."

"Aw c'mon. Bones is being a stick in the mud too. At least you can liven up a bit!"

"I'll try. But now I have to go change back into uniform, I've got a shift in the emergency room in half an hour."

"Can I come in?"

"If you want to hang around T'pal. She's busy with her engineering work. In fact, I bet she's going to come reprimand you for being so illogical and loud."

"I'd rather not. Okay, see you around." He turned to leave, then whipped around as a sudden thought struck him. "Oh, do you know where Lion is?"

"Yeah, in the med center. We've got our schedules practically the same." Devon smiled slightly, as if the thought was a nice one. She pulled out her PADD and checked to see if their medical friend had checked in. "Yup, he's been there about an hour."

Jim rolled his eyes. "He's got a thing for you, you know. He kept bothering me all day. Called me in the middle of the freaking Koby, asking if I thought you were all right. He had this idea that you needed a psychiatrist."

"He didn't know you were taking it?"

"I didn't want to tell anyone, but stop changing the subject."

"I'm not, I asked an honest question!"

"No you weren't! You were trying to distract from the fact that Lion likes you! Remember that time he stayed up all night with you when you contracted that weird disease from the Alpha Delta system T'pal brought in after a research trip? He ran himself into the ground for you, but didn't lift a finger to help me when I came down with the same thing!"

"Of course he likes me! I'm his friend, aren't I?"

"You know what I meant."

"What did you mean, Jim?" asked Devon with an icy glint in her eyes. Kirk backed away slowly, like a hunter would a female tiger that's about to attack.

"Um, nothin'," he said. His friend smiled sweetly.

"I thought not. Now let me get dressed. I'll give Lion your regards."

Jim turned and walked down the hallway. _Girls and mood swings. Just what I need in my life._

* * *

Jim arrived back at his room after a day of classes to find that Bones and Dev were still in the emergency room. He was tired and embarrassed. He'd done so badly during the test that the pretend officers inside with him had laughed the whole time. Dang that girl and her nightmares.

What he needed was revenge – cold, sweet revenge. But what could he do? She was pretty hard to prank. Maybe some background sleuthing would tell him how to prank her this time – he'd already done the standards: water balloons, chocolate sauce, petroleum jelly (very expensive to get the original stuff these days), the works. He needed something ingenious and inspired.

Jim opened his PADD.

"Computer," he said. "Search everything concerning the medical cadet named Devon."

"Last name?" inquired his PADD.

"None."

A picture appeared on the screen in front of him. It was Dev, alright. Her hair was characteristically down. Come to think of it, he'd never seen her wearing her hair up, even when she worked out in the gym or defended his back in a barroom brawl. Hmm....

He trawled through gigabytes of data, learning some stuff he'd never known about his friend. Apparently, Devon had grown up in one of the Starfleet bases on the east coast and gone to a normal school. She had tested early on the Starfleet aptitude tests and scored about the same as he had. She excelled in her science classes in high school and had been valedictorian...then didn't show up for her valedictorian speech. She had quite a criminal record too –though nothing really major. A few pranks that had ended badly, a car theft, illegal drag racing. Nothing strange there, for Dev at any rate.

Then something odd caught his eye: there were no parents' names under "family." There was a brother's name (Michael) but no parents....There was no origin file.

Sighing, he shut down the display. He hadn't learned anything incriminating or remotely funny. Suddenly his communicator beeped. He picked it up and pressed answer.

"Hello?"

"JAMES TIBERIUS KIRK!" Devon's voice yelled. "What were you doing snooping around my private stuff?"

"I...What?"

"You were looking at my bio!"

"Oh. Yeah, I was trying to find out if you had a shady past with which to incriminate you."

"Are you sure you weren't snooping?!" asked Devon, voice dripping with malice and sarcasm.

"No! I was just trying to prank you, honest!"

"I don't believe you."

"How'd you know I was looking at your file anyway?"

"I programmed the system to alert me if anyone did unauthorized snooping."

"And you say I'm devious."

"I'm still mad at you! I can't believe you would betray me like that!"

"I didn't! I swear, Dev, I didn't! I wasn't trying to – "

"JUST SHUT UP!" she screamed. "I thought I knew you, you-"

Jim winced as she called him every rude word he'd ever heard of...and a few he hadn't. He made a mental note to remember those more inventive words for later use.

Finally done cussing him out, Devon shut communications down with a dramatic sob. Or so Jim thought.

"Sheesh," said Jim to himself. "Touchy. Whatever. She'll be over it in a few days."

* * *

Devon put the communicator down. She was on her ten minute break when the alert had come through. She didn't want anyone looking at her files, and so had told the archives to notify her if someone looked through her private information. Even though she had already cleaned up her record with a neat little pass-code she had figured out (a glitch in the system) so no one could see any real details, Devon was still very suspicious. She had thought that maybe it had been an accident, maybe someone pressing a wrong button. She couldn't believe her eyes when the computer told her that it had been her best friend. She started to cry.

Maybe she'd been wrong. The ones who'd sent her here- they had said it would be different. They'd said people didn't care about stuff like that and secrets were a part of normal lives. When she first met Jim and McCoy, Devon had thought they were the best thing that ever happened to her. She had thought that they didn't care if she had a secret past. Heck, Jim wasn't too open about his history either! And McCoy...well, he was a broken soul. He was crabby and hurt all the time, and hardly talked about his past. Devon had assumed that everything was fine because they were all so secretive, but apparently it wasn't.

"Dev?" asked Bones, coming into the staff room for his break. He took in the tears and silent hitching sobs that racked her frame. "Are you all right?"

She nodded, though her face was streaked with tears. Her friend laughed, though not in a mean way.

"Yeah. You're about as okay as that time Jim came down with that weird rash in...a private place. Remember how he swore he'd get us back for not giving him medication?"

Devon's lips twitched into the facsimile of a smile. Like her usual self, she spearheaded the topic Bones was driving at. "I can't believe it. I don't usually cry this much. Stupid hormones."

"What's up? Someone hypo you without reason?"

"Jim just looked through all my private files."

"And?" He asked, making a small helpless gesture in midair. He seemed to be missing the point entirely.

"It means he didn't trust me, Bones. He thought I was like...a secret or something. I don't know. It hurts."

She didn't need to explain anymore. He knew how she felt. The same thing had happened when his wife had accused him of cheating all those years ago. It had hurt bad.

"Did he apologize?"

"Yeah, but I could tell he didn't mean it."

"Jim never really means anything. Haven't you noticed yet?"

"Yeah, but still. If I have a secret I keep it for a reason. The same reason that he doesn't talk about his past or you talk about...your wife."

"Well, he has his own problems, kid."

"Whatever. I'm not speaking to him."

"I guess this means I'm getting more sleep these days."

Devon laughed bitterly. "I guess so. I'm going to be sleeping a lot less, that's for sure."

"Maybe if you talked it out – "

"No! You're just as bad as he is."

Devon stormed off to the door. McCoy was standing calmly behind her, hands clasped in front of him. She had tried storming out before, and it hadn't worked. _One...two...three._ Dev stood by the door, hand resting on the handle.

"Dang it, McCoy. You're evil!"

"I have no clue what you are talking about."

"Sure you don't." She turned around, ran over to him, gave him a quick hug, then walked out. Bones watched wistfully as she left, eyes reminiscent. She had been hugging him more and more often lately. _Whoa, slow down old boy...She's four years younger than you. You're an elderly gentleman compared to a small thing like her. You're her older brother. A lovable older brother who is thinking about things he ought not to think about...Don't get involved...._

* * *

Eight days passed. Devon was kicked out of her room seven more times, and had spent those seven nights in all-nighter bars trying to drown her sorrows and lies with good drink. She was reluctant to sleep. The nightmares were worsening. She was ignoring Jim, no matter how many times he called. He'd sent flowers and chocolate, though Devon suspected it was at McCoy's command. Bones seemed to be taking the worst of it - trying to get each to apologize to the other. But they were both mad, for different reasons. Kirk because his manly pride had been hurt, Devon because she felt Jim had lied to her. It was quite a mess.

* * *

"Dang it, Jim!" shouted Lion. "The girl isn't sleeping! She nearly killed someone today in the ER because she was so tired - injected the hypo into the artery instead of the surrounding tissue! The supervisor told her she couldn't come back until she'd slept for ten solid hours! Then she says she can't sleep at night and started ranting about an exam she failed because she fell asleep during the middle of it!"

"Yeah, yeah. She accused me of lying!" Jim shot back. He was lying on his bed face down, wondering if he could get in a quick nap before evening classes.

"Jim, I hate to break it to you, but you're a filthy liar."

"So? That doesn't give her the right to say that to my face!"

"Yes it does."

"No it doesn't!"

"FINE!" cried McCoy, ripping the lid off a bottle of beer. "Don't blame me when you lose your best friend, Kirk."

They sat in angry silence for a long time. McCoy took large swigs of the drink as Jim eyed him sulkily.

"How do I apologize?" he muttered softly.

"What?"

"How do I apologize?" shouted Jim.

"How the heck am I supposed to know? You say sorry, beg if you have to!"

"Fine."

"You'd better, since I changed the locks and won't change 'em back until you apologize."

"I will, I will!"

"NOW!"

"Okay, cool it!"

Jim walked out the door, down the hall and took a left into the lift. "Ground floor," he muttered. Bones had become increasingly more and more aggravating over the past few days. The lift doors opened, and he got out, not really paying attention to where he was walking. He was really surprised when he arrived at Devon's door. He sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and knocked softly. It opened. There, standing in her red cadet uniform was an exhausted looking Devon.

"What are you doing here?" she asked icily, starting to close the door.

"I'm sorry."

She looked up, surprised."Save your breath."

"I'm sorry."

"I don't believe you."

"I'm sorry."

"Jim, just go away, OK?" she asked, trying to slam the door in his face. Instead, it crushed his foot, which he had stuffed between the door and the frame in anticipation of such a move. He cursed, but opened it wider. Devon glared daggers at him.

"Look, Dev, really. I didn't mean anything. I was just mad, I guess and wanted to prank you, but I couldn't come up with anything."

He didn't sound sorry at all. He sounded like an extremely bad actor rehearsing lines. The thing was, he did sort of miss his partner in crime. Plus he didn't really feel like spending a night in the hall. _Well, if this doesn't work I could go see if Gaila is free...._

"Bones sent you, didn't he?"

Jim was in a quandary. Say yes, get his head bitten off. Say no and she would probably tell if he was lying. Hmmm....

Devon could see the indecision in his eyes. She sighed.

"Look, I'll do something I've never done before. You're going to have to let me touch your face."

"What?"

"JUST DO IT!"

"Okay, okay."

He moved closer and she reached up trembling fingers, aligned them gently with three places on his face, closed her eyes, and breathed deeply. He felt a sudden rush of feelings, mainly exhaustion and mental numbness. She held the pose for a moment, and Jim grew uncomfortable. Finally, Dev let her hand down and sighed. "You're not really that sorry, but I'm tired of being tired. Sorry I've been such a jerk."

Jim stumbled back, disorientated for a moment. He caught himself with one hand on the doorknob, righted his torso, and leaned up against the wall.

"It's alright. Me too....What did you just do?"

"A trick I learned from my grandmother. Don't ask, you won't be able to do it."

"Okay?"

"Look, I want to make things up for you. Let me..."

She looked around and then stood on tiptoe to whisper in his ear.

"WHAT?"

"Shut up, brain boy!"

"What?" he asked in a lower voice.

"You heard me," she said, smiling tiredly and resting her back against the wall next to him. "I can do it."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"How?"

"I have...connections."

"Huh. Interesting. Ok, when shall we do it?"

"How's tomorrow night sound?"

"Sounds good! You coming over tonight to steal our couch again?"

"You'd better believe it. I haven't slept at all since Monday."

Jim whistled. "Geez, girl, how are you still functioning?"

Devon smirked and for a moment her dull eyes sparked with mischief. She pulled up her shirt a little, revealing her stomach and...a small brown patch taped next to her belly button.

"Caffeine patch."

"Aren't those bad for you in large quantities?"

"Yeah. Good thing I've only used two boxes so far."

Jim laughed and threw his arm over her shoulder. She leaned into him tiredly.

"It's good to have you back, Dev."

* * *

_And so the second chapter ends. How did you like it? I hope you loved it...I sure enjoyed writing it! Does Devon ring a bell as a total Mary Sue? Is the whole Bones/Devon relationship working for you? Still not sure if I'll sway that relationship romantically....any thoughts? Please review! Thank you!_

_-Owly_


	3. Chapter 3: Puzzle Pieces

_Hey everyone! Sorry for the long wait! I'm sick today, so I stayed home from school and was able to bring you this chapter. I hope you enjoy!_

_Thanks to everyone who reviewed, and even more a special thanks to my beta Unveiled Creativity!_

**_Disclaimer: Nope...still don't own Star Trek. So sad...:)_**

_Now, on with the story!_

* * *

Chapter 3: Puzzle pieces

_Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep._

"Dang it!" Jim shouted, stubbing his toe against the door to his room and shuffling the multiple data clips, his PADD, and pile of sandwiches he was carrying to reach the communicator in his back pocket. He dropped his load of stuff onto Bones's bed (he didn't want to get crumbs onto his own) and pulled out the communicator. Not even bothering to check the name, he answered. "Hello?"

"Hi, this is Gaila. Sorry I haven't been able to call you lately." Jim sat down on his own bed and lay back, staring at the blank ceiling above him.

"Oh hi, Gaila. It's okay, I guess. I just thought you'd forgotten about me!"

_That's it, Jim. Cute, innocent, well maybe not that innocent, lovable little boy tactics._

"What? Oh, no! How could I forget such a gorgeous face?"

"Right back at you, sweetheart."

"Aww, you're so cute. Listen, are you free tonight?"

Jim was surprised. He usually didn't get invites that fast. "Um, no, darling. I'm sorry, but I've got this thing I'm doing for the Kobayashi Maru."

"Oh! You're training to be a captain, are you? That is so neat! I simply adore the strong and leaderly type!"

"Well, you've got the right guy. How does sometime in the next day or so sound?"

"That sounds marvelous."

"I'll see you then!"

"See you then!" Gaila chirped, giggling.

Jim closed the communicator. _Geez. That girl was such a ditz. It better be worth it..._

* * *

"What the heck, Jim? You're going for a second try? No one ever, ever tries a second time! Are you out of your mind?" asked Bones over breakfast. He glanced over at Devon, who looked reasonably well rested. She'd borrowed their couch for the first time in a week, not even bothering to return to her room for clothes. (She had stolen a pair of Jim's pants to sleep in and had 'forgotten' to return them. Of course, Jim had accused McCoy, resulting in a good old fashioned wrestling match in the middle of the room. It had been an interesting morning.)

"Yeah, I must be crazy because Dev's helping me study. Right, Dev?" Jim asked, giving the girl a rouge-ish wink. The grin she gave him in return practically lit up the room.

"Definitely."

"Okay," said Lion. "What am I missing?"

"Nothing!" said Jim.

"Nada!" added Devon.

"You guys are too innocent."

"Thank you!"

"Gracias!"

"What's with the Spanish?" growled McCoy, looking from Jim to Devon in consternation.

"None of your business!"

"No es asunto tuyo!" laughed Devon.

"AARGH! You guys make up, and here I am with high blood pressure again. I should have let you stay mad at each other," McCoy fumed, gesticulating wildly in midair.

"All part of the plan," Devon managed to choke out past her fit of giggles.

Bones heaved a gusty sigh, but kept silent. He knew better than to meddle with their ideas. The last time he had, he'd ended up having to treat himself for a strain of parasites that were impervious to all methods of flushing out save surgery. It hadn't been pretty, especially when he'd had to explain to the surgeon _exactly_ how he had managed to catch them.

* * *

Devon was having a pretty hard time figuring out where she could make a private call. She tried her dorm with no luck; T'pal was in there, as usual, doing her work. She could call from outside on the campus grounds, but you never knew what sneaky first year cadet would be listening in. (It had happened once and had ended badly. Very badly.) Finally she decided on Jim and Bones' room. Jim was supposed to be in class and Bones had a shift in the ER in ten minutes. Devon figured that their room would be empty. She ran over to the boy's dorm, getting more than a few suspicious glances from the various occupants of the ground floor, but was saved by the doors of the lift.

"Fourth floor," she ordered, tapping her fingers impatiently on the communicator device held in her fist. She arrived at her friends' floor within seconds and stepped out into the hall. No one was around. Devon walked down the hall until she came to room 487. She quickly tapped in the code (53181220) and the door whooshed open. She stepped inside and the door closed.

"Jim?" said a voice. It was McCoy. He walked around the corner and Devon saw, much to her amusement, that he was shirtless. Bones, however, was not as amused. He cussed and retreated around the corner.

"It's okay, McCoy," said Devon, following. She watched as he struggled unsuccessfully to pull on a t-shirt, a slight smile playing around the corners of her mouth. "Are you okay?" she asked, struggling to keep the humor from her voice. Her friend was having some real issues with his shirt.

"Yes," grunted Bones.

"No, you're not! Look at you, you've got it on backwards and halfway inside out!" she cried, laughing. And indeed, it was so. The back was twisted up and he was trying to shove his arms through the wrong arm holes. "Let me help you."

She reached over and helped him untangle his shirt. As she did so, her hands came in inadvertent contact with his skin. The effect was immediate and electric. Devon stumbled backwards and groaned as if Bones had just punched her in the stomach.

"Ouch," she groaned, rubbing her head where it had come in to contact with the wall. McCoy looked over at her, his shirt finally over his head, though it was inside out and backwards.

"I'm not going to ask," he murmured, feigning disinterest as he helped Devon up. But inside, he was reeling. For a moment, he had felt something very strange. A warm feeling in his chest. He hadn't felt like that in years. Not since his ex wife, or before then as a kid.

"Good," Devon replied, standing. "What are you doing here anyway? I thought you were in med."

"I overslept. Actually, I should be running now. Dang it, I have to change. What were you doing here?"

Devon shrugged and handed him his uniform. McCoy hurried to the refresher unit and changed, then came back.

"Bye," he said, trying to get to the door. "I guess you won't answer me."

"Nope. Bye," echoed Devon. She hugged him tightly. He hugged her back, for a moment relaxed into his friend's tight embrace. Devon stepped away, fixed his lopsided collar, and let him go. "See you soon, Bones. Have fun."

Bones smiled gruffly, a little embarrassed. "Will do, girlie."

He walked out the doorway and offered her a last grin before the door whooshed shut behind him. Dev sighed. What had just happened was strange. Very strange. It had been a long time since she had felt something like that. Rubbing her temples again, she picked up her communicator. Flipping it open she took a huge breath, and spoke three words:

"Devon to Michael."

There were a few moments of silence, then, "Professor Michael speaking."

"Hey Mike. It's me."

"Assuming from your tone and relative rudeness, I assume that I am speaking to my younger sibling, Devon." The voice, presumably belonging to "Mike" was clipped and precise, almost like a machine.

"You got that right."_ Of course it's me. I'm the only one who's called you Mike and lived to tell the tale._

"What have you been doing for the past two years? I have not spoken with you in many a month, much to my pleasure."

"I've been busy." _And if I get too mixed up with you, someone'll bust my cover._

"You cannot have been so overwhelmed by work that one call such as this would be too taxing on you."

"Whatever. Can you do me a favor?"

"I am hurt by your lack of manners. Why cannot you call simply to confirm that I am well?"

"How are you? Good? Right, now can you do me a favor?"

"What do you wish me to do?" sighed the professor. "I have papers to examine and grade."

"I need your security codes. And one hack, maybe. Probably not."

"That is all? You do not wish me to, I do not know, dress up as a clown and perform a native dance in front of an audience?"

"Good, you've gotten a sense of humor. That's better than the last time I talked to you. Please?"

"No."

"You still owe me."

"For what?"

"You know, the whole 'Andova' deal. Oh, I forgot to ask. How is she?"

"She is well."

"Still dating?" _What kind of freak would actually date my brother? He's so....weird. Cold. Unemotional. Strange._

"I have proposed in the normal human way to her. We are to be fully bonded in a year."

"That's a long engagement. What if she backs out?"

"She will not. Why would she have agreed if she had second thoughts?"

"Not everyone is as machine-like as you are, big bro. Anyway, it doesn't matter. You still owe me."

Silence.

"Well?"

"You could have asked me to perform almost any other task, yet you choose this one?"

"Yes."

"I cannot believe you are my sister."

"You'd better believe it."

"Convince me."

Devon sighed. She hated when he did that.

"Fine."

She thought for a moment.

"Listen, I coached you for months on how to ask Andova on a date, and now you're engaged! That's a lifetime of happiness. Now I'm collecting and all I want is three ten digit numbers and instructions on how to get into the inner workings of Starfleet Academy. Is that so hard?"

"The action itself presents no problems, Devon. It is the consequences that concern me."

"You're an idiot."

"How rude. Besides, my IQ score is as high as yours. Perhaps higher."

"In your dreams. You know I'm the smart one in the family. You're just the geek."

"Once again I am reminded why I dislike you so."

"Please? Otherwise I'll have to hack your computer, and I really don't have the time." It was all Devon could do not to

"Go ahead and hack. You will not be able to get in."

"Oh really? You'd be surprised." I bet I can get his password in three guesses. Probably less.

Michael was silent. Devon groaned.

"You're not making things easier. You still owe me, by the way."

She hung up, sighing. It had been almost three years since she had last talked to him. They didn't see eye to eye on everything, it was true. But he had consulted her about Andova, a pretty girl around a year younger than him who was teaching a class on xeno-diplomatics, or alien diplomacy. For her brother, it had been love at first sight. She had never felt him to be so emotionally attached to someone, even their parents. _He's an odd one all right. I'm glad I chose to be me._

* * *

"Okay. I need a finger print."

Devon and Jim were sitting under a tree on a bench outside of Devon's dorm. It was the middle of the Gamma block and not many people were around.

"What? Why?"

"Because of the lock, you idiot! The fingerprint scanner. I'm making the program so it will only react to your fingerprint!"

She held up a small piece of putty.

"Press your finger on here."

He did so and Dev carefully stashed the piece in her bag.

"Okay, now for voice recognition."

Out of her book bag came a small digital recorder.

"Top of the line. It can record and play back anything exactly as it sounded."

"And we need this because…," Jim said, letting the sentence hang in the air.

"The way the program is going to be set is very specific. I can't uninstall it once I've put it in, so no one should be able to trigger it after you've gone through."

"Oh," muttered Jim.

"When I turn this on, I want you to say, 'Alert medical bay to receive all crew members from the damaged ship.'"

"Right. Aren't you going a little overboard with the cloak and dagger stuff?"

"Yes. It's fun. Now say it."

She clicked the 'on' button.

"Alert medical bay to receive all crew members from the damaged ship," Jim repeated. Devon nodded, and clicked the recorder off.

"Good."

She put it back in her bag, then sat back and smiled.

"We're good to go. I'll get the codes and everything a little later, so it should be pretty easy, assuming they programmed it with the standard programming code."

"And if they don't?"

"Then you're going to take the test and fail it."

"Wonderful. You make me feel so secure," Jim commented, putting an arm around Dev's shoulders. She wiggled out from underneath his grip, and stood facing him.

"Get used to it. A little excitement makes life worth living."

* * *

Devon chewed her lip thoughtfully. She was standing in her brother's room, staring at his computer screen. Thankfully he was gone, teaching one of his classes on the other side of the campus. _What would he use as his password? Ah._

A-N-D-O-V-A

"Access restricted. Please enter your password again," the computer said.

Right. His birthday.

2-2-2-5-.-4-5

"Access restricted. You have one more attempt at your password before you are kicked from the system."

Sighing, Devon pulled out a small bottle of black powder from her pocket and sprinkled it over the screen. Fingerprint powder, all the way from the 21 century. This method was such a waste of time!

The fingerprints were soon visible to her naked eye. She scrutinized the screen, trying to figure out where her brother had typed the most. There were many prints, but there were ten clusters where the screen was smudged so much that it had turned gray and grimy. Now what order to put them in? Devon looked at the numbers, calculating. She had one more shot. _So this was where the term "genius" was coined. Putting logic and chance and smarts together...._

2-4-5-3-8-6-9-1-0-2

Bingo. The screen blacked out for a moment, then lit up as the system started up. Devon gently wiped the powder off, and scanned her brother's files. There had to be something here about security codes.

After five minutes of frantic searching, Devon found it. She memorized all three codes and closed out of the computer. She hurried out of the room, checking to make sure that everything was in its proper place. She could not be caught.

* * *

_The next day..._

Devon and Jim were partners for their advanced hand-to-hand combat class. They had always been partners, ever since day one in the beginner's course. A few people thought this was weird, and even more had their suspicions about the duo's dating life. But Jim and Devon didn't really care- they were happy venting their frustrations about each other on the practice mat. Though Jim was definitely the stronger and more coordinated of the two, Devon had a wiry frame that allowed her to dart around Jim, ambush him from the back, and knock him flat. But this didn't happen a lot. She just wasn't cut out for the whole fighting thing.

"Urgh, get off me you oversized primate!" gasped Devon. She was facedown on the sparring mat for the fifth time in a row, Jim sitting on her back. He had both of her arms twisted around her back in a painful arm-lock.

"I kind of like this," he said, and she could hear the grin in his voice. "It's comfortable."

"Get off or I swear I'll-"

"Cadet Kirk!" shouted the teacher from the other side of the room. "Unless you wish to spend the remainder of the afternoon in a detention cell for inappropriate conduct in classes, you will release Cadet Devon at once!"

"Yes sir," Jim said with fake agreement, and let go of his friend's arms. Dev climbed to her feet, seething.

"You're an idiot."

"Is that the worst you can do?" Jim taunted her, waggling his eyebrows at her.

"No."

"Then have another go at it!"

"Fine!"

She jumped at him and attempted a martial arts throw. He blocked it and twisted her around, then kicked her legs out from under her. Devon collapsed on the ground again. He placed a foot on her stomach, restricting her mobility.

"Dang it, Jim," she moaned. "You're no fun."

"Yes I am. That's why we hang out so much."

"Let me up."

He did so.

"So," Jim whispered as they pretended to grapple again, "have you figured out the K.M. yet?"

They had started referring to the Kobayashi Maru test as the K.M. in public so no teacher overhearing their conversations would get suspicious.

"I got the access codes and everything. We just need to go in and reprogram it," Devon grunted as she sidestepped Jim's halfhearted right hook.

"Can you do that?"

"I hope so."

"Enough!" yelled the instructor. "Less talking, more practicing! I want to see that again, Cadet Devon. Put more energy into it!"

Devon slumped and backed away. They were only half an hour into the lesson. It was going to be a long two more hours.

* * *

"McCoy to Devon." The doctor held his communicator up to his mouth, peering critically at the small note in front of him. It read, "Hey Bones. I got an emergency message from the med center. Call me if you can. -Dev."

"Hey Bones. How's it going?" Devon's voice chirped through the speaker. She sounded happy. McCoy smiled, but tried not to let his pleasure show in his voice.

"What the heck are you up to? Jim's being all secretive. When he gets secretive, I get worried. Very, very worried."

"Not much. Another typical day on the job, you know."

"No, I don't know."

"Well, I'm here in the ER, waiting for the nurse to get through anesthetizing this guy who just came in from a high level hands-on engineering class. He's got like third degree burns everywhere and a mangled hand. Stupid engineering students! They think they're all that and then-"

"YOU'RE TALKING AND TREATING A PATIENT AT THE SAME TIME? GET OFF NOW!"

"Well I told you, he's taking awhile going under and-"

Devon could see McCoy in her mind's eye. He was most certainly fuming, probably flushed and most certainly would have a vein pulsing in his right temple.

"I DON'T FREAKING CARE! GOODBYE!"

There was a click and Devon frowned into the receiver. The nurse was staring at her as she administered the knock-out serum.

"Careful!" snapped Devon, pointing to the CCs of the drug that the girl was loading into the hypo. "You give him that much and I won't have any work to do."

"Sorry, Doctor," mumbled the poor girl, starting over. _Geez. Between Doctor McCoy and Doctor Devon the whole medical branch has gone insane..._

* * *

_Nine o'clock at night on the same day..._

"Okay," whispered Devon to Jim. They were crouched outside of the computer science building next to the steps that led up to the doors. "I'll go in. Wait three minutes and follow. Use the codes I gave you."

"Second door on the left, right?" Jim asked quietly, fingering his PADD before sliding it into his back pocket.

Devon chuckled. "Yeah, good. Keep careful tabs on the time."

"Got it. Have fun."

"Ha, will do."

* * *

Security guard Wilson was having a boring day. The same old people, same old codes, same old, same old, same old. He was twenty five! Sure, this job was the best you could get until you were promoted to a higher rank, but still! Things were probably livelier at the low priority jobs down on the street! Why are the highest priority jobs always the most boring?

"Uh...Mr. Wilson?"

The guard jerked back from his daydreaming. "Yes?"

"I have security clearance to enter this room. I need to do some research, can I-"

Wilson looked the girl up and down. She had a cute face that was framed by locks of brown hair. She didn't look dangerous.

"Yeah, yeah, sure. Go ahead, I'm not stopping you."

The girl looked confused, but skipped through the door anyway, throwing a quick, "thanks" over her shoulder.

_Sigh. Another boring student..._

* * *

Devon stood at a bank of screens, studying the layout. She was laughing quietly to herself. All that trouble with the codes and she hadn't even neededthem. Now if she could just reprogram everything and get going...

Devon had spent many hours with him a long, long time ago, learning how to hack into secure systems. It had been a hobby, a pastime, a game. See if you can get this information without getting caught. See if you can sabotage your enemies through the school's mainframe. I bet I can find out what species this kid is before you can! She sighed reminiscently. They had spent so much time together in front of a screen that computer programming language had almost become a substitute for normal English. That was why she felt so confident about this hacking thing. At least, until she saw the code for the Kobayashi Maru.

"Holy-" she muttered, cutting off the expletive in her astonishment. "What the heck is going on here?"

* * *

Jim checked his PADD. It had been exactly three minutes, down to the last second. It was show-time.

"Dev, you'd better be right about this," he said under his breath, then sauntered into the building. He took meaningful strides, trying to look like he knew where he was going. Jim looked around and located the door he was supposed to enter. There was a security guard at the threshold, with a dangerous looking phaser at his hip.

"Excuse me," said the guard as Jim walked up. "What do you think you are doing?"

"I'm going to do a routine scan of all machines and tests," lied Jim. "What do you think I was doing?"

"I am not sure, sir," the guard replied. "May I see your pass codes?"

"Sure thing, hang on."

Jim dug out his PADD. "Here you go."

The guard checked the string of numbers, then glanced at Jim. Without taking his eyes off the cadet, he reached into his back pocket for a communicator, flipped it open, and said, "Pythas to Mr. Fletcher."

"Yes?" an annoyed voice said through the speakers. "What is it?"

"Mr. Fletcher? I have a security problem down in sector 1. Code green, possible break in."

Jim gulped. _Devon, I'm going to kill you!_

* * *

Devon was concerned. It had been ten minutes, but her friend had not contacted her from the activation room yet. Moreover, the code that seemed to be running the Kobayashi Maru was most definitely not based on the English language. In fact, she wondered if they hadn't gotten some stupid alien to encrypt their programs.

Thinking quickly, Devon made a mental list of alien races that had their own programming codes. Squinting at the lines of gibberish before her, she tried all the algorithms she could think of to break through the barrier. Nothing. Suddenly she realized something. She had seen these codes before, a long long time ago. With a friend of hers that had been from another planet....

* * *

"What's the problem now, Pythas?" asked an annoyed looking officer. He had come down from his lovely before bed coffee to apprehend...a student. Not even armed, for Pete's sake!

"This cadet is trying to force entry into a high-security clearance room, Mr. Fletcher," said security guard Pythas.

"Yes, I can see that. Proof?"

"The codes he has are for professors only. In fact, there are only five teachers on campus that I know of who have access to these specific passwords."

"Really. And this young man is not one of them?"

"No sir."

"Well then," said Officer Fletcher. "What do you have to say for yourself, boy?"

Jim sighed, prepared to tell the men standing before him everything they needed to know. Absolutely everything. Nothing but pure, unadulterated...lies.

* * *

"Bingo," crowed Devon, punching the air. She had been right- the encryption had been written for the Vulcan language!_ How strange...._

She typed in a few hurried commands and breathed a sigh of relief as the rows of numbers began to form into coherent computer language. Taking a small pen from her pocket, she set about making a fake finger. Some putty, a little synth-skin here... She pressed Jim's print onto the finger, waited a moment, then pressed the false digit into the fingerprint scanner. It whirred and turned green.

"Good computer," murmured the girl, pushing a stray lock of hair behind her ears. It was a habit she had never really shaken. One that might cost her dearly.

* * *

"Well, sir," said Jim, thinking quickly. "It started a few weeks ago, girl trouble."

The officer sighed._ Ah, to be young again. And in love!_

"Yes, Cadet?"

"So, you see, there's this girl that I really like. But I don't know if she really likes me. I've been wanting to ask her to come with me to the planetarium sometime. She's studying to be a navigator, you see, and loves the stars. She says that they're the most beautiful things in this universe."

He allowed a wistful sigh to enter into his voice, and nearly cracked up when he saw the glint of tears in Fletcher's eyes._ Ha! What a sucker!_

"I thought it would be a perfect first date because of her fascination with them. I've been trying to screw up the courage, but I haven't been able to. So I thought to myself, Why don't you ask her via simulation first? I mean, if I can ask a sim, then I can ask her in reality!"

Pythas snorted, and Jim pretended to be hurt.

"Yeah, I know, I know. It's stupid. But I'm sure you've never asked a girl out in your life, so be quiet."

The man opened his mouth to protest, but Officer Fletcher "shhed" him. He felt sorry for the young man who had so desperately wanted to do anything for his true love, risking expulsion.

"So I wrote up the code and everything! I um...well, I'm sorry, sir, but I hacked the computer to leave a simulator room open for a few hours tonight. I was going to get inside of the activation room, plug my program in, go ask the sim-girl out a few times, then pursue the real thing."

"That is very noble of you, cadet," said Fletcher, wiping his eyes unobtrusively with the back of his hand. "Very good. The young lady must be very lucky to have a young man such as yourself. However, I cannot allow you into the room. It is against the code of regulations that I am strictly held to. You have my best wishes concerning the girl in question...what is her name?"

Grinning, Jim answered. "Devon."

* * *

Devon was slaving over the computer as if her life depended on it. It had taken her several stressful minutes to remember the computer code completely, but after the original experimentation had the code down pat. She had written the sub-program and installed it. It would only work if someone reset the Kobayashi Maru test in the activation room now. When the day came, Jim would have to put his finger to the fingerprint scanner, tell the lieutenant who was manning the communications station to alert the medical bay, and said lieutenant would send the message.

So now it all rested on Jim. She flipped open her communicator tensely, keeping an eye on the time on her PADD. Regular check-ins were held every forty five minutes. She had less than five left.

"Devon to Jim."

"Hello sweetheart."

"Where the heck are you? I'm done in here, I think."

"Sorry darling, we're going to have to postpone."

"Postpone, Jim? Are you out of your mind? You're taking the freaking test tomorrow!"

"Well, I'll just do my best. I'd like to see if I can beat it all by my lonesome self first after a good night's rest."

"Yeah? Well fine! I just risked my own safety for nothing then!" Devon slammed her PADD down on the desk that supported the screen in front of her. "Dang it Jim, what happened?"

"Well, before I say anything, I'd like to tell you that you have exactly 56 seconds to hide or something before a guard finds you in there."

"I- what?"

"55."

"Jim, I hate you."

"Love you too. And Dev? Be careful."

Devon closed the communicator violently, cursing. _Hide? There's no freaking place to hide! This is all screens and-_

She looked at her reflection in one of the darkened interfaces. She spotted her ears poking through her mass of hair and sighed. O_h no. You have got to be kidding me. _She moaned and slapped her palm against her forehead. _Think. There has to be a way other than that!_

Her mental reserve of ideas had run dry, however, and she began rummaging through her bag for the things she would need to pull such a prank off.

_This had better work._

* * *

_How was it? I want to know!_

_-Owly_

_Read and review, even if it's horrible!_


	4. Chapter 4: Victory! We have victory!

_Hey all! It's Owly, back with another chapter! Right now I'm supposed to be writing a history paper, so nobody tell my mom...._

_On with the story! :D _

* * *

Chapter 5: Victory! We have victory!

The following is a security record concerning the suspected break in of sector 1, room 1.

At 0900 the night of August the 14, there was a disturbance outside of room 3 of sector 1 involving a young cadet by the name of James Tiberius Kirk who tried to force entry to the Activation Room. He was apprehended and interrogated. Faced with no alternative, he told the truth. Then, at 0912 one of the Academy's professors was discovered in room 1, seemingly unaware of any problems. He gave his name as Professor Michael Tstill. Under further pressing, he revealed that he had forgotten to program a simulation test he was going to administer to his classes the next day. He was released, but is being monitored. No changes have been reported in any security functions, tests, or normal school processes.

* * *

Devon sighed. It had been a crazy plan. She had been amazed that she'd even managed to pull it off, in fact. Luck. That's what it was. Pure fortune. _Seriously. If it had been a tad brighter in the room, or if Jim's awful old pants weren't in my bag...I'd be in such big trouble._

Devon had seen her reflection in the darkened screens, and was reminded of her brother for a moment. She'd rooted around in her bag for a few precious seconds, coming up with a pair of Jim's sweat pants and an old, baggy t-shirt**,** as well as her baseball cap. She'd changed quickly, putting on the pants and the shirt, then her jacket. As a final touch, Devon had pulled her hair up into her hat. It was lucky that she and her brother looked so much alike. In the dark of the computer room, she could pitch her voice to just about her brother's level and no one would be any the wiser to her prank.

Then two guards burst in. They appeared only as shadows holding phasers (which were, by the way, glowing and ready to use.)

"Hold up your hands!" shouted the first one.

Devon did so, glad for once in her life that she was pretty flat-chested and wearing the formless uniform jacket that looked more like a bag than a jacket.

"Is there a problem, Officers?" she asked, straining her vocal chords to pitch so that she would sound more like Michael. _Please work, please work, please work..._

"I would like to see some identification."

"If you would allow me a moment to collect my PADD, Officers, I would be glad to oblige."

Devon rummaged in her bag and pulled out the glowing screen. She tapped it once, and it blinked, showing the security codes she had stolen from her brother's room. They scanned them carefully.

"Everything seems to be in working order, Professor Michael. May I ask why you are here at this hour?" asked the same one who had spoken previously.

"Well," said Devon, trying as hard as she could to imitate her brother's strange way of speaking. "I was about to retire to bed when I realized that I had forgotten to program a small assessment for my students tomorrow. I had written it, but did not put it into the computer."

"I see. And it couldn't wait until morning?"

"I have engagements all tomorrow," Devon explained. She clenched her fists, hoping silently that they would take her word for it and just _leave. _Watching carefully, she saw the two guards exchange a look, then shrug.

"OK, sounds good to me. What about you, Jeff? You think this guy's story is plausible?"

Devon almost snorted. They were most definitely _not _the brightest tools in the shed.

"I think so. I'd recognize those ears anywhere," said the shadow who must have been Jeff in a slow, steady voice.

"Shut up, you big oaf. That's rude."

"It is fine, Officer. I have endured many a comment about my unique physiology," Devon said, barely concealing the laughter that threatened to bust out of her at any moment. These two were _priceless!_

"Thank you, Professor."

The man held up his hand in a specific shape. His pinky and ring finger were held close together, as were his index and middle finger. There was a space between the fourth and third fingers.

"Live long and prosper, Mr. Tstill."

Devon bit her lip and held her hand up in the same gesture. The man obviously thought he was being polite, but it brought back bad memories. _Scratch that. Bad memories? I wish they were just bad. Try horrifying, disturbing, and awful._

"Live...Live long and prosper, gentleman."

* * *

Devon ran out of the building, ripping off her hat as she did so and stuffing it in her bag. It wouldn't be long before a _real _investigation would begin, and she didn't want to be caught near the scene of the crime when it did. Her mind was racing the whole time. For some reason, the conversation with the guards had made her feel sad and homesick. _Not like I have a home to go to anymore. Stop living there, Devon. You'll just hurt yourself._

She stopped running and sat down on the closest bench. To her surprise, it was the same one that she had sat on with Jim that afternoon.

_Jim. That's a good idea._ Dev pulled out her communicator and flipped it open. _Just act normal. You're all right._

"Devon to James Kirk."

"Hey girlie! You get out all right?"

"No thanks to you, you stupid son of a Klingon!"

"Aw, come on**,** that's offensive! I was going to help but some stupid officer guy insisted on walking me out, talking the whole time about lost love and marriage and stuff like that."

"Why?"

"I fed him some stupid story about why I was trying to get into the activation room."

"Huh. And it involved a girl."

"Not just any girl. It was you."

"Me? Now I'm flattered!"

"Yeah, he bought the whole thing too! It's kinda funny because I totally made it all up. "

"Ahuh," Devon yawned. "Are you back in your room yet?"

"Yeah, just got to the door. You coming over tonight?"

"No, T'pal is getting a little suspicious. She thinks I'm doing bad stuff with you guys and has threatened to tell the authorities. Again."

"Will you be able to sleep?" asked Jim, yawning hugely. Devon's heart cheered up a little bit; he sounded truly worried.

"I hope so."

"Okay. See you in the morning, I guess. Bright and early for the Koby Maru! Night!"

Devon shut off the communicator without saying goodnight. A single tear formed at the corner of one of her eyes, then rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away roughly with her sleeve.

_It's been a long time. Get over yourself. You have friends now, _said her core of steel.

_Oh shut up, _said her softer side. _I hope I never have to talk to someone as if I'm Mike ever again. Ever._

_

* * *

Eight o'clock in the morning the next day...._

Jim had requested Devon especially as one of the lieutenants during the simulation, so she accompanied him to the test. They arrived a little late and were greeted by a plethora of people that Devon did not recognize, though Jim seemed to know everybody's names. Devon was surprised at this small fact, and for the first time in three years saw exactly why Jim was considered such a good cadet._ I don't see this side much, but when I do, it's stunning. I'm pretty sure that most of the teachers don't know these people's names without looking at their PADDs!_

Jim introduced her to the rest of the simulation team. Most were human, except one humanoid alien who had gills pulsing on his neck and two pairs of eyelids. After many "hello"s and "nice to meet you"s and "aren't you in my xenopolitics class?"s they settled down a bit. Devon took her place as Jim's navigator and began to acquaint herself with the controls. She usually wouldn't fill this position, but it didn't really matter. This wasn't going to be _real._

"Two minutes!" said one of the observing captains over the loudspeaker. "Everyone, please take your places."

Jim sat down lazily, twiddling his thumbs and spinning in the captain's chair.

"The simulation will start in exactly one minute and thirty seconds. Remember, treat this simulation as the real thing. Respond as you might if you were actually under fire from Klingon space crafts. Cadet Kirk, you are being graded on your level-headedness in the face of danger, your quick thinking abilities, and-"

Jim rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I know. Ingenuity, moral strength. Same old. I did this last time, remember?"

"Very well. Good luck."

The intercom shut off, and the simulation began.

This was Devon's first time as an actor for the Kobayashi Maru test. She hadn't expected it to be so...lifelike. After their shields had been disabled, the simulator had begun to shake with every hit. There had even been smoke machines that started to spew evil smelling clouds of fog into the room as the heat readings for the ship's engines got higher.

Devon hadn't ever seen this side of Jim before that came out as he ordered the "bridge" around. He kept a cool head throughout the whole thing, even as the invading Klingon ships fired at them relentlessly. He did well too**,** defeating all but three ships and was halfway through the rescue process when a cloaked vessel came up from behind and "annihilated" them all.

_Now I see whey he wants to have another go at this,_ thought Devon. _It's almost addicting. One of those things, like the games they had in amusement parks. You couldn't win, but they seemed so tantalizingly easy..._

"Good work, Cadet," said Captain Pike, stepping through the simulator's doorway. "I believe that performance was one of the best we've seen in quite awhile."

"Thank you**,** sir," said Jim. He was sweating and shaking slightly. The captain turned to Devon, who gulped. Had she done something wrong?

"Cadet...Devon, is it?"

"Yes sir."

"Interesting. Very interesting."

"Excuse me**,** sir?"

The captain's blue eyes twinkled. "I have heard a lot of fascinating things about you and your friend here."

"I hope they were good," said Devon's mouth before her brain could catch up. Hastily, she added, "sir."

"Some of them were..." Pike smiled, nodded goodbye to both of them, and turned around. He walked out the door. After a few moments and "see you later"s, Devon and Jim followed. They walked towards the cafeteria, aiming to catch a bite before their first morning class.

"That was tough," Devon observed after a moment. "I didn't think it would be like that."

"Yeah."

"Pretty crazy. It's like, they're playing games with your head. Heck, they had me scared silly!"

"It was crazy. I loved how you screamed when the smoke generators started. You had me convinced for a moment that you actually believed it was real."

He smirked into Devon's glowering face.

"Did not!" she snapped, blushing furiously.

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"I love how all our conversations end up like this," Dev chuckled in a weak attempt to distract Jim from the argument.

"They do?"

"Yes."

"Do not."

"Do too."

"Do not."

"See what I mean?"

"No."

"Yes**,** you do. I know you know that I know you knew I knew you knew."

"Exactly."

"I thought so."

* * *

"How was the test?" whispered Bones. They were both bending over a small bottle of chemicals for their required biochemistry course, testing to see what effect the drug had on cells of diverse alien species.

"Crazy."

"Here**,** hold this," he said, shoving a tricorder into Devon's hand as he carefully placed one drop of a viscous blue liquid on a Bynar stomach cell. Nothing happened. "Nothing out of the ordinary, though?"

"No. Well, that Captain...um, I think his name is Pike. He said something really weird."

"In what way?"

"He just was like, 'I've heard interesting things about the two of you.'"

"And then?"

"He just walked out."

"Strange, I agree. Listen, what are you doing tonight?"

Devon thought for a moment, weighing her options. She watched interestedly as Bones pulled out a petri dish and put a tiny drop of the same chemical on a small sample Vulcan stomach tissue.

"Well....I'm not doing anything that'll take longer than an hour at most."

McCoy looked up from the lab. "Yeah? What exactly _are_ you doing?"

"Helping Jim."

The sample in the dish curled and disintegrated. Devon pulled out her PADD and started taking notes.

"With what?"

"Can't tell you, or else I'd have to kill you."

"Haha, you're funny."

"Why do you want to know?"

McCoy shrugged, though the tips of his ears burned red. "No special reason. Just wondering."

* * *

The night went smoothly. Devon, by some great luck, managed to get into the activation room and reboot the Kobayashi Maru system. Her program was still in place, and everything seemed to be in working order. To celebrate, she took Jim and Lion out to the bar they had first gone to three years before. Surprisingly enough, it seemed that McCoy had been keeping careful tabs on the date and reminded them both that it had been exactly three years since their first meeting.

"To us," he said solemnly, raising his glass. Jim scoffed.

"You're so unimaginative," he complained, and raised his own glass. "To good drinks, good-looking girls, and the Kobayashi Maru. Not to mention my partner in crime, Devon, and my partner in stubbornness, Bones."

"To only one more year until graduation...and to pigheadedness," Devon added sweetly. They clinked glasses and downed their drinks. The threesome stayed in their booth for a while, complaining about the stupidity of a certain medical officer that Bones and Devon loathed with a passion and the idiocy of certain girls who refused to give out first names (which was obviously Jim's idea of valuable input to the conversation.) McCoy talked a blue streak about how he had been forced to administer no less than seventy five drugs to Jim in the past two years alone because of everything his roommate was allergic to. That got Jim onto the topic of Iowa, and they were just getting into a _very _interesting discussion concerning genetic deformities when someone interrupted them.

"Hey," said a silky voice. All three looked up at the interrupter, then did a double take. It was Gaila. "I was just stopping by," she continued, smiling perkily at them. "And I saw you...Are you busy, Jim?"

Jim smiled, his head tilted slightly sideways. He'd apparently had one drink more than was conducive to clear thinking.

"No**,** Darling, I'm not." He patted the miniscule space next to him. "Sit down."

Gaila grinned back and squeezed next to him. She looked at Devon and said, "So you're the one who gets all the guys."

"Excuse me?" Devon asked, not sure if she had heard correctly. "All the guys?"

"Well, yeah," the green-girl replied. "You're always hanging with these two. Everyone just assumes that you...well, you know."

Jim and Devon pressed their lips together to keep from busting out laughing, but failed horribly. Devon smiled a little, looked at Jim, then started to laugh. She pounded the table with mirth, which in turn made Jim start wheezing as his restrained laughter threatened to escape.

"Ha, about that," Devon gasped. "For one, this guy's lack of daily, sorry, weekly bathings is enough to keep me a good three feet away from him at all times. " She pointed at Jim. "The only reason you don't smell it right now is because I doused him in aftershave before we left."

Gaila raised an eyebrow suspiciously. "That's not what I hear. Everyone in our building thinks you go from guy to guy as easily as some people breathe air."

"They're wrong," said Jim. "Trust me, I tried once. Ended up in medical with a broken arm and various cuts."

"What about him?" Gaila persisted, hooking a thumb at Bones, who seemed to be lost in the depths of his glass. Bones looked up.

"Me? What about me?" he slurred.

"Well they don't do anything, if you know what I mean. But I still say that they-" Jim started.

He broke off and doubled over in his seat, clutching his groin. Apparently Devon had just kicked him**.** Hard. She grinned evilly. "Just because you beat me in hand to hand, James Kirk, doesn't mean that I can't hurt you if I want to."

"You're," gasped Jim. "an evil, evil girl."

"Aw, you poor honey!" simpered Gaila. "Are you all right?"

She hugged him. Devon looked at her, nose wrinkled. _And she accused me of being flighty...._

"Jim," she said. "I hope you know what you're getting into."

He reappeared from underneath Gaila's fluttering hands and glared at Devon. "I do. I know exactly what I'm doing."

Devon groaned and leaned against the back of her seat. McCoy was doing the same, eyes closed.

"Hey, Bones," she whispered. Jim was doing...embarrassing things with Gaila across the table. "Let's get out of here. I think you've had too many drinks already anyway."

Lion looked up with bleary eyes and blinked rapidly, staring. He shook his head, then rubbed the palms of his hands into his eyes again.

"Are you okay?" asked Devon. She put a hand to his forehead, checking for fever.

"Yeah..." said McCoy unsteadily. "For a moment...you weren't you...you looked like....I need to go."

Devon's brow creased with worry. "Are you sure you're okay? You don't look so good."

"Uh-huh," grunted Bones. "I'm fine. Just...too much to drink."

"Right," said Dev slowly. He hadn't drank half as much as he usually did. Something was up. "Yeah, I'll believe that because I'm an idiot."

Jim resurfaced with a sound like a cork being popped from a bottle. He eyed the pair suspiciously.

"What are you two doing here?" he asked. "Go away."

Devon and Bones didn't need a second invitation.

* * *

The days passed quickly. Jim saw Gaila a lot more, and since this was _totally_ out of the ordinary, Devon and McCoy were slightly miffed.

"Why are you so happy?" asked Bones suspiciously one day after a mandatory lecture on inter-planetary politics. Jim said nothing, just kept right on grinning.

"He's taking the test again tomorrow," Devon said, coming up between them. She draped her arms over their shoulders and kicked up her legs, getting a free ride.

"What?" exclaimed McCoy, stopping suddenly. He carefully set Devon down, then turned to Jim, eyes fierce. "Why am I always the last person to know about this kind of thing? If I didn't know better, Jim, I would say that you and Devon have a thing for each other- I'm always the third wheel!"

"Yeah, yeah, save it," said Jim, yawning. "Bones, I just think you're upset because no one has ever beaten it before."

"No, it's the fact that not many people are crazy enough to try it twice, let alone thirds!"

"He'll win this time," Devon countered. "I promise. Actually, if you're interested I'll bet you twenty credits that he'll pass within ten minutes."

"Not interested," snapped the doctor.

"Whatever." Jim shrugged. "I want both of you there, by the way. They said they won't let Devon act in it again, but you can, Bones."

"I'm a danged doctor, Jim! I'm busy!"

"Too bad."

"Don't worry, Lion," soothed Dev. "It's all fine. He'll be done real quick, I can feel it."

"But I have duty at ten o'clock and the test starts at 0930 **–** "

"I volunteered to take your shift if it takes any longer. But I promise you, it won't."

"How can you be so sure?"

Devon shrugged and turned to Jim. "So, what are we going to do for dinner?"

"Don't ask me," he said, turning slightly red. "I've got to go study."

He ran off. McCoy rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Study," he snorted. Devon sighed.

"The study of female anatomy, more like."

"Exactly."

"He's getting more annoying."

"You just realized? I've been trying to tell you that for three years!"

"I know, I know. C'mon, let's go. The cafeteria's about to close."

McCoy grunted in response, and Dev linked her arm through his. They walked off.

* * *

"Devon! DEVON! Open up, dang it!"

Devon moaned and rolled over in her bed. It had been the first time in a few days that she wasn't able to sleep well. The dreams had come back and she'd awoken sweating and screaming two times already **–** and it was only one in the morning! It was a good thing that T'pal was away on a research mission**;** otherwise she would have been kicked out again. And even though she knew McCoy wouldn't _really_ mind letting her into his room again, she didn't feel comfortable being alone with him, seeing as Jim was "studying" with Gaila. It could prove to have some serious repercussions later on, mainly teasing from Jim. A lot of teasing.

"What?" she yelled blearily. "Who is it? Where's the fire?"

"It's me, Jim. Open up!"

Devon rolled out of bed and stumbled to the door. Cursing softly, Dev unlocked and opened it. Jim stood before her, clothed only in underwear.

"Geez Jim," she said, shielding her eyes against the light. "Next time you come knocking, I don't want to see this much of you."

"You know you like it," he said, brushing past her into the room. "T'pal's not here, is she? Good. Can I stay over?"

"I guess. You can have her bed."

"Thanks."

"What are you doing here anyway, Jim?"

"I told you. I was with Gaila."

"And?"

"Uhura came in. She kicked me out."

Devon chuckled and sat down on her bed, yawning sleepily. "Sounds like her."

Jim peered at his friend through the darkness. "Are you alright? You don't look so good."

"Exhausted."

"Go to sleep."

"I would if you let me!"

"Ok, ok. I'm shutting up now."

"Goodnight Jim."

"Night, sweetheart."

Devon tossed and turned for awhile in bed, trying to get comfortable. It didn't work, and she could hear Jim doing the same in the bed next to her.

"Devon?" he asked. "I've just thought of something."

Dev rolled her eyes in the darkness. "Thinking? You? Never!"

"No, really. Something important. Something Uhura said."

"What was it?"

"She said that she'd intercepted a transmission about an attack on Klingon ships. All of them were destroyed, apparently. 47 of them."

"And?"

"It's just weird. I mean, what would do that? And why?"

"Who knows, Jim? I'm sure there was a reason."

"No, I haven't heard anything."

"Because every Starfleet commander consults you when they hear odd things. Just go to sleep. Or better yet, go back to your room."

"OK, OK! Keep your hair on!"

"Thank you."

* * *

That night, Devon's brain replayed for her the story of Jim's birth in a dream. He had only ever told it once, during a particularly nasty game of truth or dare (he had chosen truth) that accompanied their round of drinks one night.

_There was the USS Kelvin, pristine and shining in the light from the passing sun. And there was the strange lightning cloud, a cloaking device of some kind or....an anomaly. A black hole? A huge ship appeared out of nowhere. There were flashes of light, and the Kelvin started to burn. There was the captain's small vessel, sailing bravely towards the monstrous ship. The monster engulfed the smaller ship, and there was a lot of screaming. A baby started to cry. A male voice (one that sounded suspiciously like McCoy's) shouted "I love you!" Small escape pods jettisoned from the Kelvin, which erupted into flames as it smashed against the monster ship. There was burning, burning, white hot pain, and then nothing...stars...._

* * *

Devon jolted awake, sweating. The dream had been so vivid, so real. Dreams were not meant to be that way.

"JIM!" she shouted, throwing her pillow at the prostrate body on the opposite bed. "Wake up, you're going to be late!"

"Whuh?" asked Jim incoherently.

"Oh the words from genii at seven in the morning," snapped Devon. "Get up and take a shower. You're going to have to wash T'pal's sheets and make up her bed. Last time this happened...never mind. Just clean up."

Groaning, Jim got out of bed and stumbled to the shower. He waved his hand, starting the flow of hot water.

"OUCH!" he yelled, then swore crudely.

"For such improper language," laughed Devon**,** "I'll have to wash out your mouth. You'd better watch out, Mister!"

"Sorry," mumbled Jim from behind the pane of glass. "Go away. I'm almost done."

"You haven't even touched the soap," lamented Devon. "At least stay in for another three minutes."

"Fine."

Devon went about her normal business. She dressed, and packed her bag for the day. She was about to ask what the heck was taking Jim so long when he said,

"OK, I'm here. Don't turn around, I'm getting dressed."

Sighing, Dev rolled her eyes. "Hurry up. It's not like you're Mr. Modesty."

Jim chuckled, then said, "OK."

She turned around and walked into the refresher unit, looking away pointedly.

"Put those sheets and towels and stuff in the washer then make the bed again. I don't want Vulcan wrath upon my head."

"You got it."

* * *

"Okay, remember," Devon fretted. "You have to say it word for word. Exactly word for word. And you can't do anything else. The program won't start unless it's the first thing you do after Uhura tells you what's going on."

"I know**, **I know, I got it the first time. Ugh, I'm _hungry._"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I haven't eaten since lunch yesterday."

"I wasn't asking if you were hungry, I was making sure you understood!"

"I understand, but I'm still _starving_!"

"Ugh, here!" Devon shoved an apple into his hand. Jim looked at it critically.

"No sausages or pancakes or even a protein cube? An apple?"

"Take it or leave it, it was going to be my breakfast!" growled Devon fiercely. Jim snatched it away, grinning.

"Thanks. I owe you one."

Devon sighed and patted him on the shoulder.

"Good luck**,** Jim."

"Thanks."

"Thank me after it works, idiot. Don't jinx it."

"Fine. No thanks?"

"Never mind."

Devon turned to Bones.

"Have fun, McCoy. This thing is intense."

"I'm sure I will. How could I not have fun with stupid-boy over there looking like he's won a million dollars? Yeah, just the way I wanted to spend my morning."

Devon raised an eyebrow, grinning. "Anyway, behave you two. I'll be watching from up there." She pointed to the observation booth. "Bye!"

Turning, she walked out of the room and into the lift directly to her right. The doors closed, then reopened a second later, depositing her right into a small control booth where she was allowed to watch the test. There were multiple observers already in the room, including a few serious looking men in black uniforms, Captain Pike (who smiled as he saw Devon walk in the door), some cadets, and...a Vulcan. Devon ground her teeth in annoyance. _Just what I need. A freaking Vulcan to mess up the freaking morning of Jim's stupid test. I hate the guy's guts already._

"Commander Spock!" called one of the men in black, walking over to him. "I trust that you have reprogrammed the scenario sufficiently? I have come to understand that this is the third time Cadet Kirk has participated in your simulation; I don't believe it would be fitting for him to have an advantage over the other students."

"You may rest assured, Commander Quinto," said Spock. "The test scenario and objectives have been altered dramatically. There is no chance that the cadet in question will have any advantage over the other students."

Devon froze midway through walking to her seat. _The Vulcan programs the test? _She was torn between glee and despair. It was simply hilarious that she was outsmarting a Vulcan, but her delight was bittersweet. _Like any good Vulcan, he'll put two and two together. He'll just have to make the jump between me and Jim...perhaps if I stay out of his way and don't attract his attention..._

Devon sat in a seat nearest the window and watched as the simulator came to life. Jim lounged in his chair, seemingly unconcerned as the systems around him booted up. McCoy looked tense; she could see it in the way he held his shoulders and ran a hand through his neat hair so that it lay even flatter against his forehead. Devon watched interestedly as Uhura, the girl whose dorm was across the hall from hers, scanned the screens before her and turned to Kirk, a look of utter disdain on her face.

"Sir, we have received a distress signal from the Kobayashi Maru," she said, voice taunting. Devon could hear her over the speakers. "They are stranded and under attack by Klingon ships. Starfleet has ordered that we rescue them."

"That we rescue them...Captain," corrected Kirk, a slight smile playing about his lips. He spun around in his chair, staring intently at Bones.

"Two Klingon vessels have entered the Neutral Zone and are locking weapons on us," McCoy observed, scanning his screen intently.

"That's okay," Jim retorted, smirking. McCoy did a double take, gawking at his friend. From her vantage point, Devon saw him shoot her a look of suspicion. She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.

"That's _okay?!_" asked Bones in disbelief.

In the control booth, a few of the serious men were exchanging puzzled glances.

"Did he just say 'that's okay?'" asked one.

"Is he not taking the simulation seriously?" muttered another. Devon snorted, unable to help herself. _Ugh. You should learn to control that stupid habit. Look what you did now! What's his name pointy-eared-guy is looking at you!_ She had attracted attention from the Vulcan. He walked over and sat in the chair beside her.

"Greetings. I am Spock. Am I correct in saying that you are one of the only five Vulcans here at the Academy?"

Devon turned to him sharply, eyes wide. _That son of a Klingon!_ "Um...no. I'm normal, sir. Human," she ground out between clenched teeth. The teacher looked at her suspiciously.

"For one so adept at subterfuge as you, your lies are nowhere near believable."

"I'm sorry**,** _sir_, but it's the truth," she growled, making the word "sir" sound more like an expletive than an honor. She turned back to the window rudely, presenting Spock with a lovely view of her back.

"Three more Klingon warbirds decloaking and locking weapons on us," a dark skinned man sitting to Jim's left said.

"I don't suppose that this is a problem either, is it**,** Jim?" asked Bones, his voice laden with sarcasm.

"They're firing, captain," said the same dark man. Jim smiled at him, then turned to Uhura, who was watching him with a mixture of surprise and annoyance on her face.

"Alert medical bay to receive all crew members from the damaged ship," said Jim. Devon tensed up immediately at the words, clenching her hands and chewing on the inside of her lip. Did the fact that Spock rewrote the program mean that he changed all her work too?

_Please work, please work, please work..._

"And how do you expect us to rescue them when we're surrounded by Klingons, _Captain?_" Uhura growled, gesticulating angrily to animated Klingon vessels on the screen before them.

"Alert medical," Jim repeated with a tight-lipped grin. Uhura turned to the consul, typing in commands furiously.

"Are you well?" asked Spock from beside her. Devon turned to him, and saw that he was staring curiously at her clenched hands. "You seem...nervous."

"I'm fine," she muttered, forcing herself to unclench her hands and teeth.

"Our ship is being hit. Shields at sixty percent," said Bones from inside the simulator.

"I understand," said Jim, twirling nonchalantly in his chair. McCoy turned to him, exasperation written plainly on his grizzled features.

"Should we...I don't know, _fire back_?" he asked, waving his hand in the air to accentuate his point.

"No" was the quick reply. Jim seemed to remember something then, and started rooting around in his seat for something. He came up a moment later...with Devon's apple clenched tightly in one hand. He contemplated it, then took a big bite. He chewed thoughtfully.

"Of course not," snorted Bones, slapping the armrests of his chair and rolling his eyes. Nothing happened for a nanosecond...then two. Devon was about to start vibrating with the tension when...everything turned off. Immediately she relaxed, and it was all she could do from punching the air and yelling with joy.

"What's going on?" shouted someone close to Devon's ear. She jumped, then settled down, only to see that Spock was appraising her. She returned his gaze levelly, but not before blushing pink. He raised an eyebrow, then returned his gaze to the scene that was unfolding in the simulator.

All the cadets, including Bones, were looking around in confusion. Their screens had just blacked out, and all buttons and alerts were dark. Then, just as quickly as it had turned off, everything turned on again. Images appeared on screens, keyboards were illuminated again. Jim took this all in stride, staring around himself calmly and munching on the apple.

"Hm...**,**" he said, seemingly collecting his thoughts. "Arm photons and prepare to fire on the Klingon warbirds."

"Yes sir!"

"Jim, their shields are still up," McCoy cut in. Jim looked at him curiously.

"Are they?" he asked through a huge bite of apple. Bones looked at him, disgusted, then checked his screen.

"No...they're not," he said incredulously. Jim smiled at him knowingly and turned to another one of the crew members.

"One photon each, let's not waste ammunition."

All the occupants of the room grinned except for Uhura and Bones, who both looked extremely skeptical. Devon frowned. Uhura would be hard to silence. If she figured out what was going on, then...

Something brushed against her hand. She looked down to see that Spock had just...touched her hand, as if on accident. But it didn't seem like one. Vulcans didn't take such physical contact lightly. _Okay...creepy much... _Dev pulled her hands off the armrests and folded them tightly in her lap.

"Target locked on warbirds. Firing."

Jim held his apple in one hand, and with the other made a finger gun. He pointed it at the screen and made little explosion noises as the ships were blasted to smithereens onscreen.

"All ships destroyed, Captain."

"Thank you. Begin rescue of the stranded crew."

Jim stood, munching away on his apple. He looked up at Devon, then averted his gaze to the other observers.

"So...we've managed to eliminate all enemy ships, no one on board was injured, and the successful rescue of the Kobayashi Maru crew is underway."

He grinned smugly. Devon smiled back so hard her jaw hurt. Then her smile faltered.

"Mr. Spock," one of the watching professors said. "How the heck did that kid beat your test?"

Spock stoo, looking at Devon, then back up at the professor.

"I do not know." His voice was cool and collected, revealing only a certain curiosity. No trace of embarrassment, or shame, or anger or _anything. _

Devon froze, surprised. _What is that Vulcan up to? Ha...well, whatever it is, it's going to be logical._

* * *

_Heyo everyone! How was the chapter? I had fun writing it- hope you all enjoyed! Please review! Reviews=happiness!!!! _

_-Owly _

_P.S. I've got a huge surprise coming up in the next few chapters...Just thought I'd let you know. :) _


	5. Chapter 5: And so it begins

_Hey everyone! Sorry for the delay, but I had turmoil within my family. My grandmother passed away on monday, and had been in a coma for a while before that. It was all so sudden, and I had to do all this craziness with my school and I got food poisoning and...well, it wasn't a fun week. The only good I can see in it is that there's a lot of emotional turmoil in the coming chapters...I hope my own woes will help me write my MC's own troubles in a more real way. Oops, I don't want to spill the beans too much...._

_Anyway, I just want to give a quick shout-out to Static Silence. I think you've been the only one to review every chapter...:) Thanks for all the support!_

_So...on with the chapter! _

* * *

Chapter four: And so it begins....

"JIM JIM JIM JIM JIM!" Devon squealed, running as fast as she could to rejoin her friends. She even beat the commanders who were walking from the observation room into the simulator in order to congratulate Cadet Kirk. "YOU DID IT!"

She threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck in a tight embrace.

"Play along. They're suspicious," she hissed into his ear as she hugged him. Jim lifted her feet off the ground and swung her around in what appeared to be happiness at his victory.

"Will do."

He whirled Dev around one more time before depositing her onto McCoy's lap. She collapsed onto the doctor, and he groaned with her added weight.

"Hey, watch it! I'm a doctor, not a chair."

Devon laughed and positioned herself so that she was leaning against his chest.

"I dunno, Bones, you're pretty comfy. I think I like this new seating arrangement."

Jim smirked. "That's what she said!"

Both occupants of the chair scowled darkly.

"That didn't even make sense," growled Devon while McCoy snorted.

"Can't get your mind outta the gutter, can'ya kid?"

"Nope," said Jim, a foolish grin slapped across his face. The expression faltered for a moment as he saw Devon's own smirk waver.

"Well, you'd better," she sniggered. "As there are five officers right behind you."

Jim spun around and blushed. There was Captain Pike as the first and foremost of the group, as well as a Vulcan male, a professor, and two other people that he didn't recognize. Devon jumped off of McCoy's lap and pulled the grumbling doctor with her. They stood at attention next to Kirk.

"Congratulations, Cadet Kirk," said Pike, smiling warmly. He extended a hand, and Jim took it. They shook firmly. "I am pleased to see that you have equipped yourself so well. You have done today something that not many would have believed possible. And, you seem to be in the company of two very good friends. I'm proud of you."

"Thank you, Captain Pike," said Jim, blushing a bit and pushing his hair back from his forehead. Devon and McCoy studied their boots, embarrassed as well. It wasn't every day that a captain called you a good friend...and in Devon's case, it wasn't every day that you were called a "good friend" right after pulling your biggest prank to date underneath the noses of over ten Starfleet officers, all of them with IQs over 150.

"Captain?" asked the Vulcan. "Permission to speak?"

"What now, Spock?" asked Pike tiredly. He'd apparently been humoring the Vulcan for awhile and was just at his wit's end.

"This is the first instance in which the student participating in the simulation has successfully completed the mission. I would like to inquire a few things of this cadet."

Captain Pike shrugged. "I don't see exactly what that would serve."

"I have reason to believe that all is not as it seems. This girl and Cadet Kirk may have possibly-"

"Perhaps another time," said the captain, before the Vulcan could go into full wind lecture mode. "I believe that these young people have some celebrating to do."

"But Captain – " started Spock, eyebrows raised dangerously.

"Commander Spock!" said Pike. "I believe any questions can wait until tomorrow. Later today if absolutely necessary."

Spock looked like he was about to throw the Vulcan version of a two-year-old's temper tantrum.

"Yes sir."

"Good man. Now, Cadet Kirk," Pike smiled again, his blue eyes twinkling merrily, "go celebrate with your friends."

Jim grinned back, casting a glance at Devon and McCoy. "Thank you, sir. Thank you very much."

* * *

"I feel bad," said Jim, staring at his food morosely. "I wanted to win...but what Pike said was too nice."

"I'm glad to see you have a conscience after all," said McCoy, drinking deeply from a cup of some blue alcohol-laced drink. "I was worried that you were a soulless son of a Klingon for awhile." Bones was feeling giddy. He had yelled at Jim and Devon after he'd figured out exactly how Jim beat the Kobayashi Maru, and had vowed never to speak to either of them unless they'd done some serious pondering on their crime.

Then Devon had kissed him on the cheek and said that she was really touched that he was so concerned, but it was all right. Needless to say, Bones didn't really hear anything after her lips had touched his cheek.

"Hey," Devon interjected with mock severity. "If you suspected that he was soulless, what did you think I was? A demon straight from the fiery gates of hell?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Well that covers it, doesn't it?"

"I suppose it does."

"Will you cut it out?" snapped Jim, slamming his hand down on the table. The silverware and cups rattled. "I'm serious."

McCoy poked Devon in the ribs, making her jump. "Did you hear the boy? He's serious!"

Dev shoved him back with her shoulder, and they shared a laugh.

Jim growled, "Stop with the flirting! I'm seriously serious!"

"All right, OK," Devon said, choosing to ignore the flirting comment. She could beat him up later. "What's up?"

"You know perfectly well what the problem is."

"Actually, I don't. All I know is that I enabled you to do something that no one else has ever been able to do, and you're sitting here moping around like a dog with three legs."

McCoy snorted into his plate of food.

"I just told you, didn't I? I feel guilty!" Jim shouted. A few of the other cadets around them looked over curiously, then shrugged. This hadn't been the first time they had been treated to front row seats of strange conversations between Jim, Devon, and Leonard.

Devon leaned over and placed her hand on Jim's own. She closed her eyes and sighed. Jim suddenly felt a little better. It wasn't much, but it was something.

"You know, you're a mixed up guy," Devon commented, lightly squeezing his hand and releasing it.

"Is that a compliment?"

"Yes and no."

"Well, that's not ambiguous."

"I know."

They sat in silence, with only the sounds of eating and drinking to disturb the relative quiet. Eventually, McCoy spoke up.

"You guys could get in a lot of trouble."

"I know," answered Devon and Jim simultaneously.

"What happens if you get caught? I'm a doctor, not a lawyer!"

"We _know_, Bones," said Devon impatiently. "You've said that a million times! Don't worry, if we get caught we'll face our punishment like...um, I refuse to say 'men'. We'll face our punishment as any Starfleet officer should. That's right."

"That's really lame, you know that?" asked Jim. "But suck it up, Bones. We won't get caught."

_Famous last words_, though McCoy.

* * *

Devon awoke the next morning to the usual bickering between Jim and McCoy. Despite their deep-seated friendship and apparent manliness, they argued like old maids.

"You get it or I won't give you medication next time you have some sorta allergic reaction to heaven-knows-what." That was McCoy with his usual medical threats.

"You get up now or I'll lock you out of the room," Jim replied. He had taken a leaf out of Bones's book and locked his friends out more than once as he "studied" with his "study partner"...usually a good looking girl with flowing hair.

"If you don't get up right now I refuse to answer to anything but Leonard McCoy."It was a stupid threat, but then again, it was a stupid argument.

"That's ridiculous. If you don't get up now, I'll tell Devon you still have that picture of her from last year's formal dance."

"Why you-"

Devon sat up and interrupted the doctor before he could call Jim something rude. "What? Ha, Bones, do you really?"

The Academy held a formal dance for all cadets every spring. Devon had been bullied into wearing a formal dress by Jim, who had stolen one from one of his numerous girlfriends. Then, when she was distracted by Anton, a boy from her xenoanatomy class asking her to dance, Jim had taken a picture of her. Truth be told, Devon had been quite beautiful, and the picture of her was ravishing. Jim had given the picture to his two friends the next day, and Dev had ordered him quite angrily to delete it. But apparently Bones still had a hard copy somewhere....Devon made a mental note to find and destroy the picture ASAP.

Bones looked over at where Dev was sitting on the couch. "No." But he was blushing.

"You'd better hand it over or you both'll wake up tomorrow with a girl's uniform on and nothing else to wear!" she threatened angrily. Bones held up his hands in the universal gesture of surrender.

"I don't have it!"

"Never mind," muttered Devon. "Doesn't really matter to me, I guess. As long as you never show it to anyone else, ever."

"He doesn't," Jim laughed. "Just kisses it every night before he goes to bed! "

"I DO NOT!" roared McCoy.

"Sure you don't," wheezed Jim, who was clutching his side and laughing heartily.

"It's okay, Bones," Devon said. She was used to dealing with the chaos of her friends in the morning. "He still has that old hat of mine."

"No I don't!" said Jim. "I wouldn't want your stupid hat."

Devon said nothing, but leaned over and rummaged in her bag. She pulled out Jim's old pants, and in the pants, her hat.

"Hey! Those are mine!" Kirk said in mock annoyance. "Why d'you have them?"

"Borrowed them. They were the ones that got me out of that room, remember? When I hacked the computer for you!"

"Right. You never did tell me how you got out of that thing alive."

"Dressed up as a guy."

"No way. Really? With your looks?"

"It was dark in the room and the two guards weren't exactly what I would call bright."

"Ah. I see."

Devon threw the pants at her friend's head and Jim fell backwards as if the pants had suddenly turned into a pile of bricks.

"Ooof," he grunted. "That hurt!"

"Stop whining," she retorted. "So what was the argument before I woke up?"

"Some message came through to all of our PADDs at once. Someone has to go see what it is," McCoy informed her sulkily.

Devon groaned in consternation. "You two would gladly race to the door if I'd said that I'd ordered pizza, but you won't get up to see what the message is? I can't believe it."

So saying, she got up to look at their PADDs. She read the message once, then checked the time.

"Great," she muttered and tossed her friends' PADDs to them. "We've got twenty minutes. Up and at 'em, gents!"

"What's so important that it's interrupting my lovely Saturday morning?" asked Jim as he looked the message over.

_There is to be a mandatory assembly at 0900 standard Earth time in Lecture Hall 5. Do not be late_.

The time was 8:40. There was a scramble for the refresher unit. Devon won, slamming the door in her friends' faces. They could hear her laughing from behind their door.

"Haha!" she chuckled. "Next time, you might want to try getting up yourselves!"

Jim rolled his eyes and McCoy sighed quietly, then both commenced with their usual morning routine. Devon was ready within five minutes, and the others ten minutes after that. It was a good time, considering they were all fighting for one bathroom. (It didn't hurt that Jim had no qualms about not showering and didn't care if he changed clothes without the privacy of a door.) They left their room with five minutes to spare and sprinted across campus to reach the lecture hall.

* * *

They arrived exactly on time. There weren't that many seats in the back where they usually sat, so McCoy herded them to three open chairs up in the front. They sat and relaxed for a minute or so, waiting for the assembly to start. Devon and Jim were remotely interested in what was going on; meetings like this weren't frequent, but they weren't infrequent either. Bones, on the other hand, was slightly more nervous. He wasn't totally sure why he felt nervous, but something in the way the Vulcan who had been so keen on interrogating Jim the day before was unsettling. There was a call for silence, then the president of the Starfleet Academy began to speak.

"We have been called together today to resolve a troubling matter."

Jim and Devon exchanged glances. This couldn't be good.

"James T. Kirk and Devon Tstill, please step forward."

Devon was horrified. It wasn't the fact that she was about to be accused of something that was most likely horrible or that she was about to stand up with Jim in front of the whole freaking school! No...it was the fact that the president had just said her last name.

Jim grabbed her arm, jerking Devon from her thoughts.

"C'mon," he muttered, pushing her towards the aisle. She stumbled over McCoy's feet, but didn't look at him. In fact, she looked at nobody; just kept her head down and her feet moving. Inside, she was crying. _He just said my last name. In front of the whole school. He may as well have just shot me._

She wasn't handling the sudden shock well.

"Cadet Kirk, Cadet Tstill, evidence has been submitted to this council suggesting that you have violated the ethical code of conduct pursuant to regulation 17.43 of the Starfleet code. Is there anything either of you would like to say before we begin?"

By now Jim had dragged Devon down to the podiums. He looked at her worriedly, then spoke into the microphone, all the while propping her up with an arm around her waist. Normally she might have slugged him for doing something like that in public, but now....she was numb. Not completely there. Totally silent.

"Um...I believe I have the right to face our persecutor directly," Jim said. He leaned over the podium, uncomfortably conscious of the thousands of eyes staring at him. Shoot...this is not going to be good.

"Cadets, this is Commander Spock. He is one of our most distinguished graduates. He has programmed the Kobayashi Maru test for four years."

Jim looked up at the rows of students and teachers to see the same Vulcan who had been so weird after the test stand and straighten his shirt. They locked eyes for a moment as the Vulcan walked down the stairs and took his place at the podium. Devon looked up, and Jim was shocked to see that beneath her brown bangs her eyes were sparkling with tears.

_Really? This is not a good time for a weird girly hormonal emotional breakdown!_

Despite his inner frustration, however, Jim remained calm and listened attentively to the accusations.

"Cadet Kirk, Cadet Tstill," said Spock. "It is obvious that one of you somehow managed to install and activate a sub-routine in the programming code, thereby changing the conditions of the test."

Jim fought the urge to roll his eyes to high heaven. _They say the guy's a genius? I've seen smarter penguins!_

"Your point being?" he asked coolly. It was the president who answered.

"In academic vernacular, you cheated, Cadet Kirk. And you coerced Cadet Tstill into helping you," he clarified.

"With all due respect, sir, would you please define..."cheated"?"

It was Spock who answered this time. "To deceive by trickery."

Jim nodded once, digesting this fact. "Now let me ask something I think we all know the answer to...the test itself is a cheat, isn't it? You've programmed it so that it could not be won."

"Then logically, you should be accusing yourselves of cheating," said Devon. Jim started, surprised to hear his friend speaking. He looked over at her and was astonished to see that all traces of upset were gone from her face. In its place, however, was something even scarier: nothing. In all his years knowing her, Jim had never known Devon to look like that. _She looks almost like that Vulcan over there! If I didn't know better, I'd say that she _was_ one..._

"Your argument precludes the possibility of a no-win scenario," Spock said. Jim shrugged and Devon remained motionless.

"We don't believe in no-win scenarios," he said, speaking for the both of them.

"Then not only have you failed to follow the rules, but you have failed to understand the principle lesson."

"Please," Jim interjected. "Enlighten us."

"You of all people, Cadet Kirk, should know- a captain cannot cheat death."

It was Jim's turn to stiffen, though with anger or hurt one could not tell.

"I...of all people?" he asked. Devon winced as if with pain. Stupid Vulcan can't keep his mouth shut, can he?

"Yes. And let us not forget your female assistant, Cadet Tstill."

Devon recoiled at the sound of her last name. She had spent so long trying to hide it, and now at the whim of an angry alien it was laid bare for all to see.

"She should know very well that...," he took a breath, eyes boring into Devon's own like "no matter how much one may hide, you cannot prevent confronting fear, but merely postpone its arrival."

Devon closed her eyes and clenched her fists. She looked up, and stared steadily at the Vulcan, lips pressed tightly together.

"You know, I think you don't like the fact that Dev hacked your test," he spat.

"I am Vulcan, and as you very well know, 'like' is not part of Vulcan vernacular. I have simply accepted the facts and made a logical conclusion."

"Your conclusion being..."

"That you two are both frauds and liars and should be treated as such."

Devon blinked calmly. She could feel the tension in the room tighten, "A liar and a fraud. How long did it take you to come up with that one, Commander Spork?"

"Furthermore," continued Spock, ignoring Devon's snide comments. "Both of you have failed to comprehend the purpose of the test."

"Then enlighten us again," added Jim.

"The purpose of the test is to feel fear. Fear in the face of certain death. To accept that fear and continue to perform admirably. This is a quality expected in every Starfleet captain."

"So..." said Kirk before Devon could get a word in edgewise. "You're telling me that the whole point of the test is to feel fear?"

Devon chuckled humorlessly. "That's a very interesting comment coming from a Vulcan."

"My point exactly," Jim agreed. "Have you taken the test, Commander Spork?"

There was no answer from him, so Jim kept right on going.

"You keep reminding us that you're Vulcan. And I'm sure you're really proud of that. But I've heard that your people don't experience fear at all. Is that true?"

Jim seemed to have hit a weak spot, and Devon smiled wanly. _Just what I was thinking, Jim._

Spock opened his mouth to retaliate, but before he could get any words past his lips, a cadet with a red uniform burst into the room, holding a PADD high above his head. He ran up to the president and handed him the PADD, saluted, then ran away. The president looked over the screen critically, then turned his gaze to the assembled students.

"We are receiving a distress signal from Vulcan."

This simple statement seemed to have an electric effect on the crowd. Jim noticed, however, that both Spock and Devon seemed more worried than was absolutely necessary. Sure, a distress signal was bad...but not that bad.

"Cadets, please report to Shuttle Hanger One immediately. This hearing is postponed until later notice. Dismissed."

As one, the body of students rose, turned, and walked out the doors. All except Jim and McCoy. As soon as the word "dismissed" was said, Devon had hightailed it out of the room so fast that Jim thought she had been beamed up by a ship or something. McCoy walked down to Jim slowly, looking worried.

"Where'd she go? And what was with her? She's so....different. If I didn't know better, I would say that she was scared."

Jim frowned. "I don't know. But she was really upset about something. Almost crying...and then, nothing. Blanked out. Just pure...Devon, you know? No emotion or anything at all."

"Weird."

"I agree. Who was that pointy eared idiot anyway?"

McCoy shrugged. "I dunno. But I like him. C'mon."

He motioned for Jim to follow, and made his way towards the door through the crowd of cadets.

"Bones!" shouted Jim, catching up. "I've got to go get my-"

"Shut it," the doctor grumbled. "We've got to find Dev and sort things out. Did you see the look on her face when Vulcan was mentioned? Something's up."

"Yeah, I know."

They walked out of the lecture hall and got a lift from a friend with a small taxi-like hovercraft to the shuttle hanger. They arrived in the middle of organized chaos. Different commanders had groups (separated by dorms) gathered and were reading off lists of cadets and ship assignments. Jim and McCoy hurried past the girls' groups, keeping a careful watch out for Devon. Before they caught sight of her, however, they reached their own dorm group. The leader looked at them, and then back down at his list of assignments.

"Blake! U.S.S. Newton! Counter! U.S.S Odyssey! Fugeman! Regula One! Gerace! U.S.S Farragut! McCoy! U.S.S Enterprise! Welcome to Starfleet, and Godspeed!"

McCoy and Jim exchanged looks. While the rest of the group dispersed to their respective shuttles, Kirk ran after the retreating back of his group leader.

"Um, excuse me sir?" he called. "You didn't call my name. Kirk, James T."

The man didn't even bother looking up. "You're on academic probation. Means you're grounded until the Academy board rules."

He walked away. Jim stared, open mouthed. _You've got to be kidding me. My one chance and...I've blown it. Stupid Devon. Stupid me. What possessed us to believe that it would be okay? UGH!_

"Um...Jim?" asked McCoy, putting a tentative hand on Jim's shoulder. "Look over there."

Jim turned towards the spot at which McCoy was pointing. There was Devon, talking with some older looking guy. For a second, Jim thought it was Spock (or Spork as he liked to think of him) but then he realized that it was a different person entirely. The only similarities seemed to be the pointed ears and gosh-awful haircut.

"Who is that guy?" asked Bones quietly. Jim was about to shrug when McCoy squeezed his shoulder so hard that he thought he would have a permanent bruise.

"Hey, what's the matter?" he complained, shrugging off his friend's hand. "They're just hugging."

The doctor looked abashed. "Never mind."

Jim rolled his eyes and took a careful look at the guy again. He frowned and squinted.

"Hey, is it just me or do they look suspiciously familiar?"

"I don't know. C'mon, we should go talk to her. But hurry up! I have to leave in three minutes."

Jim nodded. "Okay. Let's go."

They made their way quickly through the crowd of people. Devon and the other man didn't seem to notice their approach, even when Jim and McCoy were close enough to hear their conversation.

"But Mike, please! I have to go, at least to watch. I'll stay in a shuttle or escape pod or something- no one will be there to see me!"

"I have never known you to follow orders."

"I swear I will. Besides, this could be my last free act. Once they put two and two together, I'll be locked up in a cell before you can say 'phaser.'"

The man sighed, placing a hand on Devon's shoulder. "That is not logical, sister."

_Sister?_ thought Jim and McCoy in astonishment. They stared at each other, wide eyed.

"As part of our family, I have certain skills that could help in a rescue mission on Vulcan. I can help."

"Yes, but-"

"_He's_ on Vulcan, Mike. Please. Put yourself in my shoes. What if Andova were trapped on Earth and this was your last chance to save her?"

The man named Mike swallowed. "I...would put the needs of Starfleet before myself."

"Like fun you would. Look, I won't be a problem!"

"You will not stop badgering me until I allow you to come, will you? And if I don't, you shall simply sneak aboard, most likely putting yourself in danger."

"Exactly."

"I suppose I have no other choice."

"No, you don't."

Michael looked up and over Devon's shoulder to where Jim and McCoy were standing.

"Then I shall allow you to come. But here are your friends- I suggest you say your goodbyes."

Devon spun around. Her friends were there, all right.

"Hey Dev," began Jim. But before he could say anything, Devon cut him off.

"Say whatever you want to say. Do whatever you want to do. I don't really care anymore."

Bones frowned in confusion. "What are you talking about, sweetheart?"

Devon cocked her head to one side, also confused. "You don't...hate me?"

Jim laughed at the absurdity of it all. "Dang girl, I knew you were weird, but I never thought you were crazy! What have you been drinking?"

"But you heard my last name! And you probably heard what Mike said!"

"Please do not refer to me in such a rude manner, Devon," interjected the professor. She ignored him.

"Why would we hate you?" repeated Bones. Devon just shook her head, eyes glimmering wetly.

"If you don't know, I'm not telling." She paused, and they had the sense to keep quiet. "Jim, I'm guessing you're grounded too?"

Jim nodded.

"I'm sorry. I have a ride with Mike here, but I don't think he'll be willing to take you as well."

"It's okay, I guess," said Jim, trying to act like he didn't care. It didn't fool anybody, especially his two friends. Suddenly, Devon snapped her fingers.

"I got it! Bones, do you have a hypo on you?"

"No, why?" answered Bones.

"I know how we can get Jim on board." Her eyes twinkled this time, though not with tears. "Jim's going to hate it, but I think it'll work!"

* * *

_Did anyone catch the very slight LOTR reference in the beginning? Or the other actor name I mentioned? _

_Just wondering. _

_Also, I need everyone's input on the Bones/Devon relationship. Too mushy? To OOC all around?_

_Remember, reviews=happiness. And if you review there might be something in it for you....(No that was not a bribe. Ha, who am I kidding? That was TOTALLY a bribe. :D) _

_-Owly _


	6. Chapter 6: Monkey See, Monkey Do

_Hey everyone! I'm sorry about the long wait. You see, I wasn't sure how to write this chapter. So I asked my good friend StaticSilence. We put our heads together, and I think we've come up with something passable. Thank you StaticSilence!!!! :D _

_Anyway, enjoy! I've worked my tail off on this one!! _

* * *

Devon got up on tip-toe and whispered something into Bones' ear. She pulled away, and he looked down at her with something akin to glee.

"Yes..." he said, smiling malevolently. "I think that'll work."

Dev turned to Jim, grinning from ear to ear. "Jim...Sorry about everything. But good luck, both of you. Stay safe. I don't want to have to put either of you back together out of space dust."

Jim accepted her fierce hug of goodbye, though he was still confused.

"Wait, what's going on?" he asked. Devon just shook her head.

"You'll see. Consider your debt to me for the hack paid in full," she said, grinning.

"But that was a favor to me for being mad for two weeks," Jim responded. Devon just rolled her eyes.

"Sure," she huffed. "That's what I wanted you to think."

She turned to Bones.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," he muttered, halfway to himself and halfway to her. Dev just looked at him.

"You always have a bad feeling about _everything, _Bones. This'll be fine. What can go wrong?"

"Nothing," he muttered sarcastically. "Absolutely nothing. Guess I'm just worried 'bout the slight fact that a population of people who are known for never freaking out just freaked out and asked for help."

"Vulcans do freak occasionally," Dev remarked. "T'pal's thrown me out a few times. I think that counts as 'freaking out.'"

"Yeah, right."

"Whatever." She hugged him tightly, pushing her face into his chest. He hugged her back, and reluctantly relinquished his grip as she stepped away. "I'll be on the Farragut. See you guys on Vulcan."

They nodded, then went their separate ways. As soon as Jim and McCoy were out of earshot of Devon, Jim started to laugh.

"McCoy, you really shouldn't try to flirt with her," he commented, waggling his eyebrows. "You can't flirt. Besides, your personality just doesn't go with the whole mushy-gushy love talk. If you'd like some lessons, I could help you learn how to-"

"Shut up. I'm doing you a favor."

"What favor? All I know is that you were about to make out with Dev back there, in front of some guy who was probably her _brother_ and-"

"For the last time: be quiet."

"-and she didn't mind at all, it's really weird because-"

"I said, shut up!"

"-she usually doesn't get all emotional and stuff like that."

"I'm really going to enjoy this," growled McCoy.

"Enjoy what?"

Bones shoved him into the hangar's sickbay.

"Sid'down," he ordered, then walked over to a clear glass cabinet and pulled out a bottle filled with a brown liquid. Bones loaded it into the hypo, then applied it directly into Jim's neck. Jim, not expecting the sudden move, winced and cursed.

"Aw, geez!" he cried, rolling his neck around a bit. "That hurt!"

"Don't be such an infant. I'm doing you a favor," Bones retorted, walking over to the recycler and dropping the empty container into it.

"What _was _that anyway?"

"Vaccine against the infection of Melvaran mud fleas."

"What for?"

"To give you the symptoms. You're going to start to lose the vision in your left eye."

Jim blinked rapidly, looking slightly disconcerted. "Yeah, I already have..."

"And you're gonna get a really bad headache. And a flopsweat. Don't stand up yet."

But it was too late; Jim had already started to stand. He groaned loudly.

"You call this a favor?" he grunted, trying to keep himself upright.

"Yeah. You owe me one." Bones supported his friend roughly, pulling him through the hanger. They arrived at the shuttle that would take them to the USS Enterprise just as it was getting ready to take off. The officer at the door looked at McCoy and nodded. He looked at Jim...and frowned.

"Kirk, James T. is not cleared for duty aboard the Enterprise."

"But I am," said Bones quickly. "The Medical Code states that the treatment and transport of a patient is to be determined by his attending physician- me. You can see he's suffering and needs me as his doctor! I'm assigned to this ship and so's he. Or would you like to explain to Captain Pike why the Enterprise warped into a crisis without one if its senior medical officers?"

The poor man gaped at McCoy for a moment, not really sure what to say. Bones took this as an "ok." He dragged Jim aboard the shuttle mere minutes before takeoff. Luckily they were the last to board, and so all commanding officers who might have noticed Jim were up in the front. They took their seats quickly, and buckled in. Actually, Bones buckled himself in, then strapped Jim down. Jim by now was sweating (and swearing) violently. He trembled from head to toe, and as they lifted off and into space, turned a delicate shade of green that would have made any blushing Vulcan proud (if they condoned such emotional displays, that is.)

"Now I know how you felt on that first flight, Bones," he grunted. "I think I'm going to throw up on you."

McCoy ignored him, enthralled with the sight through the window. "Jim...Jim...look at this."

Something in his friend's voice made Jim look up and through the window. The view that greeted him was...amazing.

There was a massive docking station, like a huge octopus with rigid legs. Each leg docked a ship. Every ship was a marvel, but one stood out specifically. It was the USS Enterprise. Jim and McCoy both stared in awe, their mouths open, as they beheld the glory of the Enterprise.

"That's...a pretty ship," said Jim lamely through his pain. McCoy, even though he was more of a doctor than a gung-ho captain that drooled over pretty ships, nodded in silent agreement.

Soon, the passengers of the shuttle were on board the Enterprise. McCoy helped Jim navigate the ship's interior, steering him through the crowds of cadets reporting for duty. Kirk was feeling slightly better, though he was sweating like a pig.

"Bones...thanks for getting me on board. But I don't feel right...I feel like I'm leaking."

McCoy ignored him. "Oh, look...your pointy eared friend." He pulled Jim through a side hallway, and onto a turbo lift, away from the prying eyes of Spock, who was walking toward them distractedly. They reached the medical bay, and Bones dragged him inside. Jim struggled weakly for a moment as a pretty nurse walked by, but McCoy just rolled his eyes and shoved him onto a bed.

"Ugh," groaned Jim. "I wish I didn't know you. My mouth is itchy! Is that normal?"

His friend just chuckled darkly, and prepared another hypo. "Those are just mild reactions to the injection. Here's a mild sedative. It'll knock you out for a bit."

He pressed the hypo to Jim's neck.

"Hey**, **will you stop tha **– ,**" Jim started, then slumped back onto the bed, unconscious. McCoy smiled tightly.

"MCCOY!" shouted Doctor Puri. "Get over here!"

Bones turned to the doctor, who ordered him to inspect the stocks of medical supplies. The doctor himself was looking over the medical shuttles on deck six. Bones was halfway through his set task when a voice began broadcasting through the loudspeakers, and the picture of a young man appeared on the screen above Jim's bed.

"Your attention, plees: At tventy-two hundred hours, telemetry detected an anomaly in zee Neutral Zone. Eet appeared to be a lightning storm een space. Soon after, Starfleet receiwed a deestress call from the Wulcan High Council that theer planet was experiencing seismic actiwity. After that, we lost contact with Wulcan entirely. Our meesion eez to assess the condition of Wulcan and assist in ewacuations, if necessary. We should be arriwing at Wulcan within three mee-nutes. Zhank you for your time."

Jim sat up, sweating and panicky.

"LIGHTNING STORM!" he gasped. McCoy, who was standing a few feet away, looked up.

"Ah, Jim, you're awake." Walking over, Bones smiled lightly, arms folded tightly over his chest. "How do you feel?"

Kirk tried to get up, but he was still slightly woozy.

"Don't get up yet... Jim! Your hands!" exclaimed Bones, gawking at his friend, arms came unfolded in a snap as he immediately reached for the tricorder at his belt.

Jim looked down at his hands and let out a half strangled cry of surprise. He started down at them, horrified, and with good reason: both of his hands were swollen to three times their size.

* * *

Devon was hiding. Michael was up on the bridge, meeting with the captain of the ship. This left Dev to her own devices for the next hour or so. She had been hidden in her brother's quarters, but after fifteen minutes, was too jittery to stay there any longer. She decided to explore a bit.

_I can't stay in this stupid room forever. May as well get out and see some things before I'm either killed or arrested. _

Devon walked out of her brother's room and looked up and down the hallways. A few people ran by, dressed in muted shades of yellow and blue. They didn't notice her. Trying to look inconspicuous, Dev made her way to the lower decks. She had never been allowed to explore a starship before. Sure, she'd been on a few for a couple of days for research trips and school assignments. But there was a very different feel to a ship when you weren't supposed to be on board. Much more exciting. Very James-Bond-esque.

"What are _you_ doing here?"

Dev looked up, startled, from where she was hiding in an escape pod. She wasn't exactly sure _why _she was sitting in the danged thing. It was small, cramped, and uncomfortable. But she'd been exploring the lower decks when someone had recognized her. There had been a chase, and Dev had wound up hiding in this tiny chamber.

The person who had questioned her was a man with a yellow command shirt stretched across a burly chest and a remarkable resemblance to a monkey. He stared down at her through the pod's hatch. Devon gulped. She recognized this guy. He was a teacher at the Academy, named Nick or something, and would most _definitely _know who she was and where she was supposed to be - which was not on this ship.

"I do not think that you have the clearance to be aboard this vessel, Cadet Tstill."

Wincing at the sound of her last name, Dev scowled darkly. "Yes I do. Check the computer."

"As if anyone would believe that after this morning's despicable display," snorted the man derisively. "After cheating and disrespect of senior officers, I would be surprised if you were allowed to leave the country ever again, much less the planet. Especially considering your family heritage."

"Excuse me?" asked Devon slowly, not liking the direction this conversation was taking.

"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about, Devon Tstill. Every man, woman, and child should be warned that you are not fit to be treated as a human."

"Considering the fact that your ancestors seem to have forgotten to evolve from neanderthals, I don't believe you to be entitled to human rights either. So we're square," Dev said automatically. _Well darn. There went any chance I had of being treated fairly. On the other hand, It's kind of nice to see his eyes bug out like that..._

The man went still for a moment. Then he punched Devon as hard as he could.

"That was for my family, the Macciavellos," he grunted.

She cried out lurched back in the chair of the pod. He punched her again, breaking her nose.

"Because I have a heart," he growled. "I'll do more for you than your family ever did for mine. I'll eject your pod near Vulcan. If you're lucky, you'll land on a planet with a Federation outpost. Live long and prosper, you monster."

"NO!" Dev shouted past her pain. But it was too late. The man laughed, and shut the door. There was a hiss as the doors sealed themselves. She stretched up, trying to unlock them, but he had already initiated the external door locks. They wouldn't open until she had landed somewhere. Thinking quickly, Dev tapped furiously on the small computer before her, trying to override the locks and noting that her pod was on a timer to jettison in fifteen minutes. She hit the "unlock" button. Nothing happened. Screaming with frustration, Dev pounded on the doors. But Mr. Macciavello had already left. She leaned back in her uncomfortable seat_, _furvently praying that whatever Jim and Bones were up to on the Enterprise, they were in better shape than she was at the moment.

_

* * *

_

"What's this?" Jim yelped, staring down at his bloated hands in disgust.

"I don't know, a reaction to the vaccine of some kind, dang it! Stay still, Jim-"

"No, no, look here-" Jim pointed at the screen that was still playing the message from the bridge, then pressed "rewind" and "play."

"...telemetry detected an anomaly in the Neutral Zone. Eet appeared to be a lightning storm een space..."

"Lightning storm in space," muttered Jim. "Lightning storm. Bones, we have to stop this ship!"

McCoy wasn't listening. He held the small tricorder to Jim's face, looking worried. A white box full of medical tricks seemed to have magically appeared in his arms. "You're not allergic to Cardassian vole dander, are you?"

"How the heck should I know?" snapped Jim. "Is Uhura on board?"

"You need an antidote _now. _Or else you'll _die. _Sit down, keep your heart rate low."

Jim raced away, totally ignoring Bones' orders. He led McCoy on a wild goose chase, out through the doors of the sickbay and down the hallway. He stopped at another computer, and prodded the screen impatiently. "Computer, locate crew member Uhura."

"I haven't seen a reaction this bad since med school-" McCoy was muttering, rummaging in his bag of medicine as he struggled to keep up.

"Lieutenant Uura is at signals monitoring station twelve, deck four," said the computer voice.

"Deck four, station twelve...okay, okay," muttered Jim. "Bones, we're flying into a trap!"

He sprinted away again, leaving a cursing Bones in his wake.

"You're delusional, you know that!" yelled the doctor as he struggled to keep up with his escaped patient. He caught up with Jim as he was talking with Uhura. Bones pulled out his loaded hypo and injected it into Jim's neck.

"OW!" griped Jim, waving his hands in the air in a vain attempt to brush Bones away. "Stop it!"

"Jim- what are you doing here- oh my gosh! What happened to your hands?" Uhura yelled, backing away.

Kirk hid his hands behind his back.

"Never 'ind 'at," he slurred. "ee ransmissio' rum de 'lingons. Ut 'id oo 'ear?"

Surprised and slightly scared as his sudden inability to talk, Jim turned to McCoy.

"'Uts 'appening ooo y ung?" he shouted incomprehensibly.

"Numb tongue?" asked Bones. "You've got numb tongue?"

McCoy dove for his medical bag, rummaging frantically for another hypo. Jim grunted and turned back to Uhura.

"'Omulun!" he said loudly, obviously trying to enunciate. " 'as....dee…ransrission....Omulun?"

Uhura looked confused. "Romulan? Was the transmission Romulan? What transmission?"

"da 'ight 'efore 'oby 'aru."

"The night before...the...Kobayashi Maru? Romulan...Yes, it was."

This news was astonishing. Jim reeled backwards, into McCoy, who injected him with another drug. Jim squeezed his eyes shut, balling his fists up like a little kid.

"YOUCH! SON OF A KLINGON, DANG YOU!" he shouted, the use of his tongue suddenly returned.

* * *

Pike was having a bad day. First, his protégée was accused of cheating and faced academic expulsion. Then his ship- his new ship- was set to be launched into a potentially dangerous situation without any commendations whatsoever. After they were all set to leave, he had found out that his pilot was unable to fly a ship properly.

Things weren't going well.

Then, when things couldn't possibly look anymore grim, Jim, the one who was supposed to still be on Earth and NOT on the Enterprise halfway to Vulcan, burst into the bridge.

"Captain Pike- sir! We have to stop this ship!" he shouted, running into the room. Every occupant of the bridge looked at him in silent astonishment.

"Kirk! How the heck did you get on board the Enterprise?" asked Pike, standing up to face Jim.

"I'm sorry**, **sir, this man is under the influence of a severe reaction to a vaccine. He's delusional and I take full responsibility for any – **,**" started McCoy, but Jim cut him off.

"Vulcan is NOT experiencing a natural disaster, it's being attacked by Romulans!" he shouted.

"Cadet Kirk, I think you've had enough attention for one day. Dr. McCoy, please return to medical. We'll have words later."

"Yessir," said McCoy, trying to grab Jim's arm, but missed. Pike frowned at the doctor.

"Alone. I'll deal with Kirk."

"Sorry sir," mumbled McCoy. He saluted smartly, shot a dirty look at Kirk, then walked out.

* * *

Seven minutes after her nose had stopped bleeding, the pod Devon was imprisoned in began to move. At first she thought that it was the normal vibrations of the ship, but then realized it was different. More choppy. Roller coaster like. Through the small hatch on the doors, she could see people running to and fro. They looked scared out of their wits.

"What the heck is going on?" she wondered out loud. More people ran by, shouting incomprehensibly. Dev pounded on the small window directly above her. "HELLO? CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?"

No one even batted an eyelash in her direction. When she was about to tear out her hair from anger and frustration, someone noticed her flailing arms in the window of her prison. It was a woman dressed in a red ensign uniform. Dev stared at her, for a moment not recognizing the face. Then it clicked.

"Jaylie!" Dev cried, ecstatic. She had known Jaylie at the Academy. They'd worked shifts in the emergency room on campus together. "Help!"

Jaylie looked shocked. Wide eyed, she attempted to pull the doors open on Devon's pod, but to no avail. She quickly punched in a bypass code, and tried again. They didn't work. Biting her lip, Jaylie pressed a button for the intercom system.

"Devon!" she said into the microphone. "Dev, what are you doing here?"

"Long story," Dev replied quickly. "What's happening? Get me out of here!"

"I can't!" cried Jaylie, wringing her hands. "Something's wrong with the wiring! The lock won't open and I don't have the know how on how to open it!"

"Go get an engineer! Or a scientist! Someone!" snapped Dev, annoyed at her friend's stupidity.

"That's the thing! They're all down in the engine room, trying to fix it!"

"Fix _what?_"

"You don't know? The whole thing with Vulcan is a _trap._ There are some Romulans attacking, and they're hitting us full force. We don't have long." Her voice broke.

Devon wasn't sure what to say. "What...what did the captain order?"

"We're supposed to be evacuating. That's why I'm down here. All ensigns are being told to get off the ship."

"Then go! Go you idiot!" Dev shouted at her friend.

"No, let me jettison your pod first."

"I don't think you'll be able to. I think it's on a timer to release in around three minutes."

"I'll override it!"

"You won't be able to. Get out of here!"

"Bye, Dev. Goodbye!" said her friend, backing out of Devon's field of vision. By craning her neck, Dev could make out other ensigns running toward their own escape pods and shuttles. The moments ticked by. Flames began licking the walls of her pod. The heat didn't bother her, yet. It was only just a matter of time.

There was the whirring sound of her pod starting up. The timer apparently had worked, and just as promised, was about to eject her into open space.

BOOM!

The ship suddenly imploded. There was a rushing wall of flames, speeding towards Dev at a hundred miles an hour. She knew that her pod was designed to enter the atmospheres of planets and could withstand great heat, but still....she instinctively covered her face with her hands. There was a flash of bright, bright light, then darkness...

* * *

_I feel evil. MWAHAHA!! Review! I'll have the next chapter up and ready to read by tomorrow!!! _

_-Owly_


	7. Chapter 7: Volcanoes Aren't Good Doctors

_Are you impressed with me? Two chapters in one day!!! :D _

_StaticSilence: I am evil!!! And here's the "more more more more more" :D _

_Koryu Elric: Well, I'm sorry that Dev didn't really get too addressed in this chapter. But Jim and Bones were all here! -weak chuckle- Please don't kill me... ;) _

_This is dedicated to StaticSilence, Koryu Elric, and Unveiled Creativity. You guys are motivating me to write more and more and more and more and more and more. ON WITH THE STORY!! _

* * *

"Captain, I do not believe that Cadet Kirk has the clearance to be aboard this vessel, thus making him a stowaway," said Spock as he walked over to where Jim was staring insolently at Captain Pike. "According to Starfleet regulation code number one point-"

Jim turned to him, eyes flaring angrily. "Yeah, yeah, I know you're a great arguer, I'd love to do it again sometime-"

"I am able to remove this cadet from the bridge, sir-" the first officer continued.

"Try it! This cadet is trying to _save _the bridge, Spock!"

"By attempting a full-stop warp during a rescue mission? Not likely, and far from logical."

"It isn't a rescue mission, it's a trap! Listen to me! Vulcan is being _attacked_!"

"Based on what _facts, _Cadet Kirk?"

Jim stood very still for a moment, becoming impassive.

"The same anomaly, a lightning storm in space, that we saw today has only ever been seen in one other place, at one other time, to my knowledge: the day of my birth, before a Romulan ship attacked the USS Kelvin," he said coldly, before turning to Pike."I read your dissertation."

"I do not comprehend what you are insinuating, Cadet Kirk," Spock cut in. "Your proof is insubstantial."

"Another fact: The ship that attacked the Kelvin was highly advanced, with weaponry and technology we could not even begin to understand at the time. Not to mention the fact that a squadron of Klingon ships was destroyed last night. The transmission which spoke of this destruction was in Romulan. Do you see my point _now,_ Commander Spock?"

"And you know of this how?" asked Pike angrily. Jim looked at Uhura. Startled, the African American girl bit her lip nervously.

"I...I intercepted and translated the message myself. Kirk's report is accurate," she muttered, looking slightly abashed at all the attention she was suddenly getting.

"We're warping into a trap," Jim clarified, making sure his point was getting across. "There are Romulans waiting for us on the other end, I promise you that."

"As surprising as it is, Captain, the cadet's logic is sound," Spock said. "And...as Uhura's skill in xenolinguistics is unmatched, we would be wise to accept her conclusion."

Pike sighed and ran a hand through his hair, and turned to the Communications Officer.

"Scan Vulcan space for any transmissions in Romulan," he ordered curtly. The officer nodded, pressing the headset into his ear, then frowned.

"Sir, I'm not sure if I can differentiate between Vulcan and Romulun."

Pike turned to Uhura. "Ensign Uhura, can you distinguish the Vulcan language from the Romulun language?"

"Yes sir. I speak both languages fluently- all dialects." She looked proud as she said this, and stood up a tad straighter.

"Then relieve the lieutenant. Chekov! Hail the USS Truman."

"Yezzir!"

There was a flurry of activity. Chekov, who was trying to hail the starship, reported back to the captain, looking worried.

"Keptin Pike, sir. The sheep is out of orbit, but I keenot hail it. I tried zee other sheeps too- notheeng, sir. We have lost all contact."

"Captain!" called Uhura. "I cannot pick up any signals in Romulun or otherwise around Vulcan. It is as if everything is being jammed, sir!"

"It's because they're being attacked," Jim said forcefully. Pike took this in, nodding. There was a beat of silence as he weighed his options.

"Yellow alert. Shields up. Ready all weapons," he said at length.

There was a chorus of "yes sirs" from the rest of the crew. Sulu checked his screens, sweating slightly under the sudden tension that filled the room.

"Arrival at Vulcan in five...four...three...two...one."

He pulled a lever, sending the ship out of warp speed. What met the eyes of the crew was mayhem. Utter chaos.

"Emergency evasive!" shouted Pike, but Sulu was already on it. Pieces of ships flew by, shrapnel in space. Jim lurched on his feet, trying to stay upright and steady. He grasped the back of the captain's chair, and held on for dear life. Then the ship righted itself, causing everyone to sigh in relief. Just as quickly, though, this gasp of air was drawn back in as they beheld a horrible sight before them.

The helm of a ship was floating in space before them, threatening to smash them to smithereens. But that wasn't the bad part.

The name of the ship was still legible.

Jim gulped, and for a moment wished that he wasn't so smart. If his brain wasn't so dang good at making calculations and facing the facts, then maybe he wouldn't have to come to terms with the outstanding piece of evidence that was staring him in the face quite so soon. Maybe not for hours. Maybe when he was with someone who would understand.

The title on the floating piece of hull in front of them was the USS Farragut. The same starship Devon had been stowed away on with the aid of her brother.

Jim stared at the remains of the Farragut, numb. _It's not true. All that's happened is that last night we had a bit too much to drink, and all this is an alcohol induced stupor. I'm probably on the floor of a bar right now, dead to the world... Nothing more._

_Or maybe I'm in the hospital, under the effects of some horrible drug. Maybe Devon was crying over my sickbed right now._

But everyone knows that if you can think something like that, it's never a dream.

_She's gone._

The two words were perhaps the hardest concept Jim had ever been forced to reconcile himself with in his life. The girl who had held him and Bones together for the past three years was _gone. _G-O-N-E gone. Dead. Space dust. Particles floating around in the vacuum of space.

Stuff like this didn't happen every day. Everything should stop. Just _halt. _People should be crying. The sun of this galaxy should have stopped shining. Nothing was _right _anymore.

"Drop us down ninety degrees, Sulu!" shouted Pike again, ripping Jim from his thoughts as effectively as a nuclear blast.

"Yes sir!" cried Sulu, but he was already flying with amazing skill, dipping them down and around the remains of the fleet. There was the brash noise of many different people screaming instructions into different headsets. But then...silence. Awed, horrified silence.

Far off in space, near the planet Vulcan, was a gigantic ship. It must have been at least one hundred times the size of the Enterprise, and just by looking at it Jim could tell that they stood no chance against it. It was a monster, a deep space alien. The fodder for nightmares.

Jim stared out the view screen silently. It was too much to take in at once.

"SIR!" called Spock to the captain. "They are locking torpedoes on us!"

"All power to the frontal shields!" ordered Pike. There was a flash of light from the huge ship, then the Enterprise rocked and bucked, sending people flying. Once again the noise of too many mouths moving at once started up.

"We're hit!" shouted one of the crew members. "Deck six!"

"Their weapons are powerful sir!" Sulu informed the captain as he wrestled with the bucking ship. "We can't take another hit like that one! Shields at sixty percent!"

"Get me Starfleet Command!" Pike called to the room at large.

"Sir!" Spock said, his cool voice somehow carrying over the din in the room. "They have lowered some type of high energy pulse device into the Vulcan atmosphere."

"Prepare to fire all weapons!" responded Pike. There was a flurry of activity. People ran in and out of the bridge, and chaos reigned in the small room.

Suddenly, it was all stopped.

"We are being hailed," called out one of the red-shirted ensigns unnecessarily. A tattooed man appeared on the screen before the bridge.

"Hello," he said.

"I'm Captain Christopher Pike," the captain responded coolly, though fire burned in his eyes. "To whom am I speaking?"

The tattooed face on screen nodded slightly, digesting the name.

"Hello Christopher, I'm Nero," he said, sounding for all the world like a little kid announcing himself to a playmate. The tone was so out of context that Jim fought the urge to laugh. Out of habit, he looked to his right, where Devon usually stood. If he thought something was funny, she would too. Then he remembered.

_Dev's gone._

A strange burning sensation built in the back of his throat, but he shook it off. Just staring at the tattooed face, shocked and repulsed, Jim stood there behind the captain's chair.

_It's him._

That man he'd dreamed about killing all his life. The one who had murdered his father and nearly killed his mother and him.

The guy who just...murdered...Dev.

Even thinking the word "murdered" in relation to "Dev" was painful. _She loves putting people back together- that's why she's a doctor. Murder and Devon just don't go in the same __sentence__. But now they do. I'll kill Nero, if it's the last thing I do...Oh, the irony..._

"You have openly declared war against the Federation," started Pike. "Withdraw and we can arrange a meeting place at a neutral loca-"

"I do not speak on behalf of the empire," Nero said, cutting off the captain's textbook request. "We stand apart. As does your Vulcan crew member, isn't that right, Spock?"

Dead silence filled the room. Spock got up slowly, and walked to the captain. He looked for permission to speak, received it, then turned to the face on the screen.

"I apologize. I do not believe we have met," he informed Nero.

"No. Not yet we haven't."

This outrageous statement did not even seem to faze Spock, who stood next to Pike impassively. Nero's eyes wandered through the room, resting briefly on each crew member there. Most of the ensigns received glances, nothing more. The two young men, Chekov and Sulu were scrutinized intently, as were Jim and Spock. Pike was considered for a moment, but then dismissed. Tense silence filled the room.

"Spock," said Nero, as if he had never heard the name before. "Spock, I want you to see something."

The members of the bridge waited with bated breath to hear _exactly _what Spock was going to see, but were sorely disappointed when Nero turned his accusing gaze back to Pike.

"Christopher, your transporter abilities are disabled. I would like you to man a shuttle _alone, _and come begin negotiations with me on my ship, the Narada. I look forward to meeting you in person. See you soon."

The transmission cut itself off. The bridge remained quiet.

"He'll _kill _you, you know that?" Jim asked rhetorically.

"Your survival _is _unlikely," Spock added.

"Captain we gain nothing by diplomacy, going over there is suicide!" continued Kirk.

"I too must suggest that you rethink your strategy," Spock finished. Pike sighed, deliberating. All eyes fixed themselves upon him.

He opened his mouth curtly, and answered the two insubordinate men.

"I understand that."

* * *

McCoy looked down sourly at the ensign that was being presented to him on a stretcher. She was a little young to be a crew member, no older than 19 years old. There were burns all over her face and body, not to mention the gaping wound in her stomach where a metal pipe had been blown into her abdomen, presumably by the explosion that had happened on deck six.

"Please!" she whispered, grasping the doctor's arms as he bent over her with a tricorder. "Chris...Chris...please...tell him..."

She slumped back onto the stretcher, knocked unconscious by the small attempt to get her message across and extreme pain. Bones quickly scanned her body and face. He frowned. Pulling out a hypo, he twisted the nozzle and injected it into her neck, watching her heart rate steady. But then her blood count came in and Bones frowned seriously. She had lost way too much.

He rummaged in his med kit and pulled out some blood substitute and a dermal regenerator. McCoy went to work on the girl's stomach first, extracting the pipe and bandaging her up. His hands became covered with blood, but he kept working. The ensign at his shoulder buzzed around, asking questions and offering tips.

"BE QUIET YOU MISCREANT!" growled Bones after three minutes of the guy's annoying bouncing and bobbing. "Don't you see the carnage around you? Go make use of your medical training! Or aren't you a doctor?"

The boy's eyes grew wide with alarm.

"Y-yes," he stuttered, unsure of what to do. He was new, and unused to the gruff ways of Bones.

"Yes _sir,_" McCoy corrected him sharply. "Now go make yourself useful!"

The ensign bobbled his head again and scurried off. Muttering darkly to himself about the incompetency of certain young people, McCoy went back to work on the girl. Her vitals were too low. Eventually he straightened from his half crouch over the floating stretcher and wiped his hands on a cloth. He motioned to a nurse to come over, which she did...hesitantly.

"She's probably not going to make it," Bones informed her. "I gave her a sedative. Keep an eye on her vitals in an ICU on deck eight. If she pulls through, move her to sickbay. If not send her to deck one for cremation."

He trailed off, and the nurse nodded.

"Yes sir." She grabbed the end of the stretcher and pulled it away towards the lift. McCoy watched her go silently, then went and washed his hands in a sink. Drying them, McCoy leaned back against a wall and surveyed the space before him.

Smoke hung near the ceiling, giving everything the bitter odor of burning metal and plastic. There were the cries and moans of those who had been injured by the hit the ship had taken, and the shouts of the medical personnel as they tried to get supplies and workers to help clean the crew up. It was chaos.

_Where's Puri? _McCoy wondered silently. Then he remembered, sending his stomach plummeting into a black abyss. Dr. Puri had been on this deck, deck six, when it had been hit.

Bones' hand flew to his communicator like lightning.

"McCoy to Dr. Puri."

Nothing happened. Cussing in his head, Bones found a nearby computer and asked the computer to locate Dr. Puri.

"No such passenger is currently aboard this ship," said the computer snootily. McCoy closed his eyes for a moment, letting the information sink in. So Dr. Puri was dead. Well, the guy had never been exactly friendly, so it wasn't much of a wrench. _But..._

_Wonderful,_ thought Bones to himself sarcastically. _Now I'm in charge of the whole dang med section of this ship, and there's complete mayhem._

He pressed the intercom, sending his voice throughout the deck.

"Attention," he said into the microphone in the wall. "All medical personnel excepting senior medical officers are ordered to escort all those with minor injuries to sickbay. If there are serious problems, bring your patient directly to a senior officer and await your orders. McCoy out."

* * *

At the same time that McCoy was dealing with death and destruction on deck six, Jim was dealing with his own problems up on the bridge.

"I need an officer with advanced hand to hand combat training," proclaimed the captain, turning to the assembled crew on the deck. No hands were raised. Then, one trembling arm was thrust into the air. It was Sulu's.

"I have the training, sir," he said.

"Good, then come with us," Pike ordered crisply. "You too, Jim. You're not supposed to be here anyway."

Jim nodded numbly, not sure what was happening.

"Chekov!" said Pike. The Russian kid whirled around in his chair, facing the captain eagerly.

"Yez zir?" he asked politely.

"Contact Engineer Olsen. Tell him to meet us at Shuttle Bay 5."

"Aye, Keptin!"

"Good man," answered Pike. He motioned to the lift. "Let's go."

Sulu got up immediately and followed Pike and Spock through the double doors and into the turbolift. Jim hesitated, then ran over to Uhura.

"Listen, Uhura, I know you hate me-"

"You got that right."

"Ok, I _got_ that," growled Jim fiercely. "But you didn't hate Devon. Just do a scan of the space around here, see if there're any survivors."

"Kirk!" shouted Pike. Jim swallowed, shot one last puppy dog look at Uhura, then hurried to the lift. Sighing, Uhura watched him go. She didn't really _hate_ Jim. She just didn't like him. He was too....something. Uhura didn't have a word in English for it, but had plenty of words in other languages for him. Suffice to say that if they were translated, they would be censored.

But Uhura had never really hated Devon. They weren't best friends at the Academy, yet neither were they sworn enemies. In fact, Uhura sort of admired Dev...the way one might admire a leopard or a shark, that is. Danger, beauty, and confidence wrapped into one...

_Sigh. I could get in trouble for this...but...it's Spock's station. He won't mind if I just...do a quick scan of the surrounding area. Yeah. That'll work._

Trying to look like she was supposed to be taking over the first officer's station, Uhura strode purposefully over to where Spock usually sat. She took the seat primly, and looked at the controls in front of her. They were a little more modern, but she thought she could handle them...

Peering into the screen before her, Uhura quickly typed commands into the computer, thanking all her lucky stars that she had taken a refresher course on computer sciences and technology just last semester.

_Phew..._The instructions had functioned correctly. Uhura quickly reviewed the analysis of the space around the Enterprise, not sure what she was looking for. The typical makeup of the area around her was visible on the scan- silicate, carbon, a little hydrogen and helium along with miniscule (and by miniscule, the readings mean TEENY) amounts of nitrogen and oxygen. The normal residual displacements of energy and the like from the phaser battle that had just occurred were evident too...But what was she looking for? The emissions of a larger ship? That would be useless. A human, floating suit-less in space? Uhura would rather not. An escape pod, perhaps? Yes, that might work. The emissions of an escape pod would create....excess plasma. Right, the plasma waste of normal sub-warp speed thrusters would be present. But wouldn't the explosions of a ship create the same waste? Uhura racked her brains, trying to remember. _No...they won't. Something about the heat and a transformation process..._

She leaned closer to the screen, scanning the percentages of elements around the ship. She read a few lines of statistics and put a hand to her mouth as she reread a specific line again and again.

There it was, in translucent blue writing, was the reading she was looking for. Excess plasma, most likely heated from the engines of an escape pod or shuttle, but at the wrong intensity for a large ship. Uhura reached for her communicator, but at a second thought, stilled her hand.

_But that could be anything, or anyone! It could be a Romulan for Pete's sake!_

Uhura put one hand to her forehead and closed her eyes. This was all too sudden, too soon....Gaila had been on the Farragut. Her roomate was annoying and not exactly morally praise worthy, but nice enough. She was just lucky that Spock had transferred her to the Enterprise. If he hadn't...

"Uhura?" asked a soft voice. The girl was startled out of her reverie by the sound, and even more surprised when the speaker put a hand on her shoulder. She looked up. "Are you well?"

"Oh," Uhura said, relieved. "Spock, you surprised me."

"My apologies. Are you well?"

"Yeah...I'm...okay."

"May I inquire as to the reason you are running a detailed analytical scan of the space from here to Vulcan?"

"It was a favor."

"Would it be an infringement upon your privacy if I asked to whom the favor was being returned?"

"No," Uhura replied, a slight smile turning the corners of her mouth upward.

"Who requested a favor of you?"

"Well...Jim and Devon."

Spock's eyebrows shot up, causing the small smile on Uhura's face to turn into a full blown grin.

"Pardon my misunderstanding, but I believed Cadet Tstill to be on Earth. And you to have a low opinion of James Kirk and his posse," Spock said.

"I do think they're both idiots...but the way he asked..." Uhura murmured, standing up so that she was face to face with the half-Vulcan man. "He was angry, but not at me. At the world, almost. And he wasn't asking for himself...but for Devon. I sound like I'm crazy."

"I do not believe you to be insane," commented Spock. "Simply more observant than the average human. Now, if you would allow Lieutenant Nimoy to take over this station, we would be able to run the Enterprise correctly."

It was a mild rebuke, almost playful. Still smiling, Uhura nodded and returned to her own consul.

* * *

McCoy switched the intercom off and was immediately inundated with frightened looking ensigns, junior officers, and patients. He rolled up his sleeves. The work he was doing was grueling. Many of the people he treated had third degree burns from the explosion; others had missing limbs. There were many dead, and many who would not last the night. Finally, the flow of injured ebbed. Bones ordered the attending nurses and other officers to clean up while he inspected the rest of the deck for injured. There were crews of engineers everywhere, trying to stop leaks and patch up the walls. Bones was just about to walk off towards the hazard zone surrounding the place they were hit when the comm unit on the wall beeped. He answered it.

"McCoy speaking."

"Where is Dr. Puri?" asked a clipped voice on the other end. Bones groaned inwardly. It was the pointy eared, green-blooded, computer Jim had picked a fight with._Great._

"Dr. Puri was on deck six when we were hit," Bones said bluntly. "He's dead."

"I see. It seems that you have inherited his responsibilities."

"Yeah? Tell me something I don't know."

"I would point out the lack of logic in your answer, but I understand that your race seldom succumbs to the logic of my own."

"Whatever," huffed McCoy. He hadn't understood half of what the guy was saying. "Can you at least tell me what the heck is going on up there? I have people to take care of."

"Have you not heard?" asked Spock, sounding vaguely worried.

"No. No one's been kind enough to enlighten anyone down here," growled Bones.

"We are pressed for time, but I shall endeavor to explain what has proceeded so that you may understand our situation. I value the input of all my senior officers."

"Wonderful," muttered the doctor. In anticipation of the lecture that was surely on its way, he leaned back against the wall, ear cocked to the speaker mounted next to the communicator.

"Cadet Kirk was correct in realizing that Vulcan was under attack by Romuluns. As soon as we dropped down to sub-light speeds we were in a war zone, dodging the wreckage of the rest of the fleet."

McCoy bolted upright, slamming his fists into the wall as he pushed himself up.

"All of them?" he asked loudly.

"Yes," Spock responded coldly. Bones swallowed hard, waiting for the news to really sink in. All those ships. The four hundred person crew necessary to man each vessel. The people he had known, gone to school with...

_Wait a dang moment,_ he thought, a sudden horrible idea coming to him all at once. But of course, Spock didn't get the telepathic message, and kept talking.

"The ships were attacked by a war criminal known as Nero, the so called captain of the spacecraft named the Narada. He has informally declared war on the Federation, and demanded that Captain Pike go aboard his ship _alone_, which our captain has done."

"What? That's insane!" Bones grunted. The stupid commander types and their heroism....Jim was just like that. He'd once gone with a broken wrist for a week before he let anyone touch it. And Devon, though she was a doctor as well, refused to let Bones treat her unless it was a real emergency. And to Devon, an emergency constituted at least five broken bones, a deadly disease, and almost bleeding to death. It had happened once....

_Devon. What had she said? "I hope I don't have to put you two back together out of space dust." _If the joke hadn't been in such bad taste, Bones would have laughed at the irony. He was the one doing the doctoring, and she was the one probably space dust right now.

McCoy mentally shook himself. _What's wrong with me? _He wondered silently. Making jokes about Devon, his...what exactly _was _she to him?

"To decide whether or not an action represents a captain's ability to act with logic and reason in the face of danger is part of the new duties you have just inherited. If you would like to suggest that Captain Pike should resign if he should return in good health-"

Bones snorted. "I was just...kidding."

"I do not understand the complexities of human insincerities."

"Forget about it," groaned McCoy, mentally shaking himself. Here he was, having just found out that his...friend? A best friend? More? Whatever she was, her ship had just been destroyed, presumably she with it, and he was bantering with Vulcan? _The universe plays cruel tricks on its inhabitants..._

"I shall endeavor to do so."

McCoy grunted in a non-committed manner. Spock, seemingly unaware of the pain his senior medical officer was in at the moment, forged ahead.

"Captain Pike is taking with him Ensign Kirk, Pilot Sulu, and Engineer Olsen. They are to space jump down to a device that the Romulans have lowered into Vulcan atmosphere, which is jamming our transport abilities, and destroy it."

Bones fell against the wall with a thump. First Devon, now Jim..._They just pick away at you 'till you're skin 'n bones..._

"I must go now to oversee the space jump. It would be preferable if you were present during the operations."

"What am I, a soldier? No, I'm a doctor, and I have work to do, thanks," snapped McCoy.

"Very well. Then I order you to report to the bridge as soon as you are able to."

"Fine," grumbled Bones. "I will. McCoy out."

He pressed the disconnect button and sighed. _And to think that a few hours ago I was worried about them getting expelled..._

"Sir!" cried a nurse, running over to him. "We have taken the liberty of searching the rest of the deck. There weren't any other survivors. There are many more injuries in the sickbay, though, and I thought...well, you're a senior medical officer and you're needed."

"You think I don't know?" Bones shot back heatedly. "Go on up yourself. You have training, don't you? I'll be up in a moment."

Surprised by the sudden fierceness of the senior doctor, the nurse turned around and fairly fled. McCoy watched her retreating form tensely. Every muscle in his body was tightened, his whole frame trembling. Stiffly, he walked to a lift and summoned it by the touch of a button. A few moments later it opened and allowed him in. Bones stepped inside...and allowed the information to really sink in.

_Devon is gone. Jim might very well be gone in a few minutes. Nancy left you long ago. You're alone again, with nowhere to turn but a ship full of people about to get hurt. _

Bones slammed his fists into the shiny white wall so hard that his teeth rattled. It wasn't fair.

_Life isn't fair._

When the two doors opened into the sickbay, McCoy had his emotions under control. Well, he _thought _he did. To tell the truth, they were about as under control as an active volcano.

"Sir!" cried an unsuspecting ensign. "We have a few patients here who came up with the rest of us that are in pretty bad shape. The junior officers said they felt like some senior expertise would be welcome so would you-"

"Those idiots!" Bones exploded as he surveyed the patients before him. He whirled to the ensign at his shoulder. "What were you thinking? You don't move someone with a neck injury! He should have been brought directly to my attention!"

He pushed the ensign out of the way and hurried over to the man who was lying on a biobed, unconscious. His neck was twisted slightly too far than looked healthy. Bones cringed, and set to work.

_Stupid ensigns, ignorant junior officers, selfish nurses..._

Word traveled quickly in the sickbay, even with a full blown crisis on hand. Soon every nurse, officer, and ensign understood that Dr. McCoy was only to be disturbed from his work in a _dire _emergency. And dire meant "no other option." Literally. A nurse who didn't believe this rumor blithely interrupted McCoy as he was setting a broken arm. She was reduced to tears within moments.

**Beep beep beep.**

Bones reached for his communicator and flipped it open.

"Dr. McCoy, your presence is requested in the transport room."

He sighed and answered. "Okay."

The connection shut off and McCoy turned to the nearest junior officer.

"You! What's your name?" he barked.

"K-k-Karl, sir."

"Well, _Karl_, tell everyone to keep doing what they're working on now. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Y-y-yes sir."

Bones harrumphed loudly and walked out of the sickbay without even a backwards glance.

_Yesterday I was a college boy. Today I carry the world on my shoulders._

* * *

_Ok. Now for question and answer time. I had 34 hits on the last chapter alone. And only two reviews. C'mon guys, do you think I'm going to make this story better all on my lonesome? I need feedback! I don't know if Jim and Bones are so terribly OOC that it's painful, I don't know if Devon is a sickening Mary Sue, and I definitely don't know how you like the plot line so far!! So, if you're content with the quality of the chapters I'm writing right now, don't review. BUT if you want it better, please review. _

_-Owly_

_P.S. Are you guys watching the Olympics at all? I can't (my TV is broken) and no one will tell me who won the pairs figure skating. Anyone willing to let me know? Thanks! :) _


	8. Chapter 8: Braver Than You Thought

_I am SOOOOOO sorry for this chapter being SOOOOOOOO late. Really. I'd get down on my knees and beg your forgiveness, but you can't see me. XD Anyway, I'll give a quick explanation why this is so late. 1. Writer's block. 2. My beta has virtually disappeared off the face of this planet. Well, she hasn't answered in a week, so I'm guessing she has. This chapter is coming to you completely unbeta-ed, so forgive the horribleness. I have the next three or four chapters written, though, so all they need is some tweaking. You should see them in a week at the MOST. Probably less. Anyway, thanks to everyone who has reminded me to update, and especially to StaticSilence who has helped me TONS with characterization. :) _

_**Krista: **Thanks for all the reviews! You've guessed a few things I haven't given out yet- good for you! :D _

**_Tinyhowlett: _Not sure if the winds of fortune are on my side or not, but here's the next chapter! I hope you enjoy it as much as you've enjoyed the chapters before!**

**_Chloes-cheese: _We're finding Dev in the next chapter, I think....though whether she's in one piece or not I'm not saying. MWAHAHA!!! **

**_Maw94_: I know! They were amazing! Did you see Kim YuNa? She's my hero!!!**

**_Koyru Elric_: I'm sorry this update didn't come sooner....:( **

**_Shellybellypie: _Don't worry, more's coming!!! **

**_Duckyinthewater_:I feel like I've mentioned this before, but I'm in love with your username. Pardon me if this is the fourth time I've said that. :D I've updated, but not soon...I'm sorry. **

* * *

As Bones was helping put together the crew members who were injured on deck six, Jim was trying to concentrate on a rather alarming stunt he was being ordered to perform.

"Without transporter capabilities we can't do our job," Pike informed the three men following him. "Mr. Kirk, Mr. Sulu, and Mr. Olsen will space jump down to the device, get inside, disable it, and transport back to the Enterprise. I myself will man a shuttle and meet this Nero character. See if we can reach some kind of agreement."

Jim and Sulu exchanged glances. Both of them saw the same thing reflected in the other's eyes: the look of a man faced with a pack of rabid dogs on one side of them and a bottomless abyss on the other. No escape...well, nothing clean, that is. They both knew that Pike didn't really think there would be an agreement. He was just buying time.

"Mr. Spock, I'm leaving you in command of the ship. As soon as the communications and transports fully up, contact Starfleet and report exactly what's happened here," he continued.

"What exactly has happened here?" Jim asked_, _almost angrily. _Besides the death of thousands of people. My friends included. Besides the whole universe coming apart at the seams. _

Pike looked at Jim, eyes piercing. "I'm charging Mr. Spock with those details, Kirk. You just focus on keeping your head firmly on your shoulders for the next half hour."

Jim grimaced. Keep his head on his shoulders? Try "not squished into goo by Romulans or gravity or burned to a crisp by entry into Vulcan atmosphere." _That _was more realistic.

"If all else fails, rendezvous back with the fleet in the Laurentian system," Pike continued, looking Spock directly in the eyes. "And...I'm promoting Kirk to first officer."

There was a nanosecond of disbelief. Jim's jaw dropped, and he shot a glance at Spock. The Vulcan was looking like he was seriously considering mutiny.

"What?" exclaimed Jim, flabbergasted. Pike looked at him steadily, his cold blue eyes clearly saying, _"I know you've got talent. I also know you screwed up today. This is your chance. There aren't any cheats in real life."_

Jim scowled darkly. _Of course there aren't any cheats in real life_, he thought at Pike. _You think I don't know that? If there were, we wouldn't be in this situation! _Of course, not being telepathic, he did not get the message word for word. But one look at the new first officer's face was enough.

"Sir?" asked Spock, eyebrows arched dangerously, completely oblivious to the silent conversation taking place before him. "I am not familiar with the complexities of human pranks, and this is not the ideal time for a lesson in them."

Pike smirked, turning his focus back to the Vulcan. "This isn't a prank, Spock. I'm not the captain. You are. And Kirk's first officer. Besides, while I'm gone, we need a chain of command. And I have to say-- you two will make a swell team."

Jim stared at the captain, unable to figure out if he was making of joke, or if he was serious. Either way....it was in bad taste. Spock nodded silently, eyebrows twitching, then saluted and walked away.

"Spock!" called Pike, remembering one last thing. "Be careful with the ship. She's brand new."

Spock's mouth twitched in the Vulcan facsimile of a smile and and he nodded. He turned around again and marched away. Pike sighed, watching the man stride away from him. Jim could tell that he is realizing that this was probably the last time he will ever see the prickly Vulcan-- and was a little sorry. Shaking himself, the captain motioned to Sulu and Kirk to follow him into the lift. They did so, and as they stepped through the doors, Jim thought of something.

"Captain?" he asked hesitantly. "If we knock out the machine...what happens to you?"

Pike glanced at Kirk over his shoulder, eyes steely. "Well then, you'll have to come and get me, won't you?"

This statement was ridiculous...and yet at the same time the epitome of masculine courage [otherwise known as stupidity and/or recklessness in the name of chivalry]. Jim didn't press him for anything more, however. He could tell that the captain wasn't going to give him any other answer because the answer was obvious: it was self sacrifice.

The threesome stepped out of the lift and into the cramped interior of a shuttle. A small, fiery looking guy greeted them and introduced himself as "Engineer Olsen." Pike nodded his greeting and shoved three different colored space-jumping suits at them. Kirk grabbed the blue one and Sulu took the yellow, which left Olsen with the red. He didn't seem to mind. Hurriedly, they pulled on the skin-tight undersuits over their normal clothes. After that came the bulky outer layer of a tough alloy that would keep out the freezing cold of space and the burning heat of entering the planet's atmosphere. Olsen and Jim grabbed phasers and attached them to their suits. Sulu grabbed something else, which Jim could only assume was a weapon. They settled into their seats, which were across from a huge door that was their only protection from the outside world, and sat, sweating, in uncomfortable silence. As soon as they were in position, Pike started the engines of the shuttle up, lifting the small craft into the air and out into the void of space.

Jim's mind was going at warp speed, factor 10. So much had happened that day that he forgot to be upset or grieving or even afraid of flying through open space at a hundred miles an hour with only a few inches of metal and cloth between him and the absolute zero of space. _Or perhaps_, he thought wryly, _I'm braver than I thought._

"I'm ready to kick some Romulan arse," said Olsen's voice from Jim's right. Kirk looked at the guy out of the corners of his eyes. Was it just him, or was this Olsen character grinning? After everything that happened and what they were about to do? Annoyed with the engineer, Jim turned to Sulu.

"So...uh, what kind of training have you had?" he asked. Sulu's eyes gleamed.

"Fencing," he said proudly. _He thinks fencing is advanced hand to hand combat?_ thought Jim, totally nonplussed.

"Fencing," repeated Jim, disbelieving. Sulu nodded, grinning, like he was expecting Jim to be totally impressed. _Geez. This guy is almost as pathetic as Bones is with girls. Even Dev, who's practically in love with the guy, agrees with me. Well....she did. When she wasn't space dust... No. She's alive. I know she's alive. She has to be alive. Otherwise...the world wouldn't work anymore. It just wouldn't. Ugh. That's horrible logic. Oh no. Logic. I'm starting to sound like Mr. Pointy Ears himself. WWBD? What would Bones do? No, bad example. If he's heard 'bout her, he's probably terrorizing the sickbay right now..._

Jim shook his head, trying to clear it. Here he was, about to perform his wildest stunt to date, and he was still drowning in some emotional whirl pool. A few seconds ago he had been numb. Why was he so upset now, anyway? Dev didn't have a problem with dying. She'd mentioned once that she hoped she could have a near death experience, just so she could see for herself if there was a tunnel and a light. Then she had stopped, and said, "Scratch that. When my time comes, it comes. I'll greet it with a grin and a glass of champagne."

_So if I'm not feeling sorry for Dev, I'm feeling sorry for myself. And I don't have time to feel sorry for myself. I'm here and now, and that's where my head should be. That's where it's going to be. Get a grip._

Satisfied with himself and the new wisdom he had just come to, Jim pulled the hood of his undersuit over his head. Over this, he fitted a mask, complete with a plexiglass visor and a vent for oxygen. The visor fogged up for a moment, then cleared as the internal cooling system did its work.

"Ok gents," came Pike's voice over the loudspeaker. "You have one chance to land on the platform and knock the thing out, so pull your chute at the last moment possible."

Taking a deep breath, Kirk nodded to his companions. They nodded back. Suddenly, the enormity of what they were about to do and the consequences if they failed hit home. They blinked nervously, sweating a little.

"Pre jump at one," Pike continued. At this cue, Kirk, Sulu, and Olsen got up and assumed a ready position, holding onto rails on the ceiling for support. "Three...two...one."

The huge door in front of them opened. The gravity in the small chamber died suddenly, slamming them back against the wall. Jim's heart rate kicked up a notch.

"Good luck," said Pike via intercom. His voice was calm and acted as a relaxant to the three men about to jump into the unknown. "And Godspeed."

Inside the cockpit of the shuttle, the captain pulled a lever which ejected Olsen, Sulu, and Jim simultaneously into open space. For a moment, all they could hear was the steady breathing of their companions and the great, infinite silence of space. It was so still and peaceful that Jim almost forgot that he was moving at an upward of 150 miles per hour. Then he hit the upper layer of Vulcan atmosphere, and the calm vanished, to be replaced with violence and heat.

* * *

The swirling of the flames pummeled the small window of Devon's pod. Mere nanoseconds from being destroyed by flying shrapnel and fire, the pod was blasted out into the darkness of space by a wave of compressed air and the thrusters of the ship. It spun end over end, around and around and around. Dev closed her eyes, hoping that it would stop. Of course, space being frictionless, it didn't stop. Groaning and extremely nauseous from the constant washing machine-like tumbling, she managed to type a few commands into the computer. Thankfully the limited uses of the engines on her pod were able to stabilize the craft. Sighing with relief, Devon quickly pulled up a map on the computer.

"Computer, what are the nearest class M planets? Within a lightyear or two, preferably," Dev asked cautiously, not sure whether she wanted to hear the answer or not. Because her pod had a limited fuel supply, Devon estimated that she could travel one lightyear, maybe two, at sublight speeds. At a warp factor of one or two, she could go maybe...one lightyear. Even then, though, it would take days to get anywhere. So, if there weren't any planets nearby...well, she didn't want to think about it.

"Vulcan, class M. Delta Vega, class M," said the electronic voice snidely.

"Bite me," she muttered at the computer. "You have _got_ to be kidding me."

So there really wasn't much of a choice. Vulcan was being attacked or something, and so it probably wasn't very smart to land there. Unless..._No_. That was too dangerous. There was no way she could land, pick up some people, and get out of there in time. Or was there? She was a Starfleet officer, after all. She didn't fear injury, or pain, or death. What was there to lose?

Somewhere in the back of her mind, a dim voice started a list of a bunch of things that she could lose. Most of them were names, and at the top of that list was Jim and Bones. Then there were others, like Mike and Andova and Jaylie. And Him.

Dev shouted incoherently, pounding the computer before her in frustration. There had to be another way out. A way she could save everyone and herself. Or maybe just everyone else.

That's when one warning light blinked on. And another. Suddenly, the display before her was alight with orange, yellow, and red lights.

"Aw c'mon," groaned Devon, pulling at one ear in consternation. "The universe just wants to kill me, doesn't it?"

* * *

Burning. And vibrating. Was it really necessary to vibrate like that? The heat was terrible, and Jim prayed fervently that it wasn't hot enough to be lethal. It had to be a hundred and fifteen degrees in here! _As soon as I get back, I'm going to write the manufacturers of these things to tell them that their product ain't workin' the way they say it does. Keep you cool as you enter the atmosphere? Cool my a-_

"WHAAAAHOOOOOOOO YEAHHH!!!!" twanged Olsen's voice through Jim's headset, interrupting his train of thought. There was a lot more bumping and heat, then they were through the atmosphere and below the clouds. The temperature dropped suddenly, giving Jim goosebumps along his arms. He could see the ground, far below him. It looked so far away, and didn't seem to be getting any closer...But according to the little altimeter that showed up on his visor, he was at least ten thousand kilometers above the surface and falling at about 180 kilometers per hour and gaining speed.

"Kirk to Enterprise," Jim said into the microphone. "Ten thousand meters to the device."

To his left, Jim could see the cables and wires of the thing flying past in a blur. Far below him was a platform, seemingly small, but getting larger by the second.

"Eight thousand meters," said Sulu. Another second passed.

"Seven thousand meters," Olsen updated. Their velocity was terrific, and even with the insulated helmets, they could hear the air whistling past with an almost deafening howl.

"Five thousand meters," gasped Jim. Gravity had taken hold of his body at last, and it felt like his internal organs been left up at the ten thousand meter mark.

"Three thousand meters."

The platform was larger now, almost too large. It looked like they would crash at any moment.

"Two thousand meters!" shouted Sulu. Another second passed. "One thousand meters! Pulling chutes!"

He pressed the button on his shoulder that released his chute, and it billowed out with a _snap!_ He was jerked up suddenly, though still falling at a dizzying speed. Jim was next. He slapped the button on his shoulder, and heard his chute deploy. He was jolted suddenly in midair. It felt like he'd been hit by a bus or something. There would be bruising soon, he was sure of it. Not to mention that the parachute did much in the way of slowing him down. He was still falling very fast, almost too fast to to remain in control.

"Five hundred meters!" yelled Olsen, followed by a wordless cry of exhilaration. He hadn't yet deployed the parachute.

"OLSEN!" shouted Jim. "Pull your chute! Do it now!"

"No! NOT YET!" came the crazed reply.

He was still in freefall, and from Jim's vantage point, about to slam into the unyielding metal platform.

"Three hundred meters!"

"OLSEN!" Sulu cried. Jim echoed the call.

"Two hundred meters! One hundred meters! Fifty meters! Ten!"

Olsen pulled his chute. It jerked him upwards violently, but was not enough. He hit the platform hard, grunting with pain. He bounced again, then was pulled over the edge of the platform...and into the blazing column of fire that was streaming from the underside of it.

Jim gasped with shock. Olsen was gone-- incinerated. And he could go the same way if he wasn't careful. As he pulled on his parachutes strings, trying to get himself in a good position to land, he finally felt the fear that should have completely paralyzed him up in the shuttle. He could almost see death waiting for him in that column of fire, ready to take him to whatever end he deserved. One last hazy thought crossed Jim's mind before he made contact with the platform.

_At least I'll see Dev again. And meet my dad. _

Then he shook that thought off. He wasn't going to die. He was James Tiberius Kirk. His father had died to give him life. And he had to avenge Dev's death, didn't he? No. He wasn't going to die.

But that platform was coming awful fast....

* * *

_Reviews/criticism/even flames are appreciated. Compliments are always accepted, but I like criticism too. :D Live long and prosper, and expect the next chapter soon! If not, you have my permission to send ninja monkeys to my house to beat me up. _

_-Owly_


	9. Chapter 9: Turning ExtraCrispy

_This is pretty awesome, people! I was checking the traffic on this story, and apparently we have readers from a lot of places! I don't want to be stalker-ish, but I found this interesting so I thought I'd share it: We have readers from the USA, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Finland, Canada, Australia, Germany, Ireland, Barbados, Aland Islands (I'm sorry to the person who's from there, but I don't know where that is) and Poland. That, my friends, is awesome. :) _

_Anyway, quick shout out to Duckyinthewater, who was the first to review the last chapter. And, a quick reminder to my beta: I NEED HELP!!! I feel insecure without someone proofreading my stories before I publish them. :-/_

_Krista: HAHA! I LAUGHED when I read your review. I don't know why I found it so funny, but I LAUGHED. :D Thanks for the commentary on the story- it was helpful. WWBD? I don't own all rights to that. I got the idea from the _Maximum Ride Series_. One of the characters thinks WWMD? Or what would Max do? (Max being the MC.) So I put in WWBD? Lolz!! :) Yup. I'm out to get Dev. I'm not going to make it easy for the girl!!!! Though I will say that you won't be expecting what happens because what I've planned is really lame. Though I won't say that it's not suspenseful. ;) -ducks incoming monkeys- OK OK I'm updating already!!!_

_Caped Coconut: Yay! My un-betaed work wasn't bad!!! I'm ecstatic!! :D _

* * *

Jim slammed into the platform so hard that he thought his shinbones had been shattered. But there was no time to think about that now. He was being dragged by the parachute to the edge of the platform. He slid over the rough surface of the metal, too quickly, though, to grab onto anything. Scrabbling frantically on the metal, he was whisked closer and closer to the edge. Right above his head, a jet of fire flared up through a grate, then dissipated. Jim shuddered inwardly. He'd been millimeters away from being turned into human barbecue.

"JIM!" came Sulu's shout from above as he watched his companion evade death again and again by mere inches.

Then there was a moment of panic as Jim felt his feet slip into emptiness. Not a moment to soon, his hands miraculously found a crevice in the platform, and he hung there, straining against the parachute as it tried to pull him off the platform and into the fiery column below it. Grunting with the effort, Jim let one hand up from the small gap the was latched onto, and hit the switch on his shoulder that retracted the parachute. Already exhausted, he collapsed onto the platform, gulping in great lungfuls of the thin air. All he really wanted to do know was lie there, recuperating. Yet once again there was no time. A tattooed Romulan head popped out of a hatch from the inside of the device, turned, and saw Jim. Uttering a wordless war cry, he leapt at the young man prostrated on the ground, phaser at the ready. Kirk didn't give him time to fire. He jumped at the Romulan before he lost the upper hand and tried to wrestle the phaser away from him, and in the process, shot the phaser several times by accident into the open air. A wordless struggle ensued, and finally, after several long seconds of tense grappling, the gun slid over the edge of the platform and disappeared.

At the same time this struggle was going on, Sulu was making his landing. He, like Jim, touched down then bounced. But as he was being bounced up, the phaser fire from Jim's struggle with the Romulan tore through the chute, causing Sulu to careen through the air. He fell down towards the fire that had killed Olsen. Luckily, at the very last moment, his parachute caught firmly on the wiring on the center of the platform. He swung towards the flames, but at the last moment managed to kick off the underside and back up towards his chute. Calmly, Sulu slapped the button that retracted his chute and he was lifted up as the machine whirred. He was pulled up over the lip of the platform, and glanced over his shoulder. He could see Jim, fighting for his life. The Romulan had forced him to the edge of the platform, and it looked like he would be pushed over. Yet more frightening and immediate was the jet of flames that was flaring up through the grate directly behind his head. Letting out a strangled cry of alarm, Sulu's fingers found a small hole in the surface of the platform and held on for dear life. He was barely managing to keep himself from the fiery death directly behind him when he remembered something. With his other hand, Sulu pulled out a black object from a pocket on his suit. He pressed a button on it, and a blade unfolded from the center, creating a fencing sword that was a good two and half feet long. With this blade, Sulu severed the strings that attached him to the chute. He leapt to his feet, and was faced with another Romulan. This one was carrying a weapon that looked like a medieval axe. The Romulan took a swing at Sulu, who parried it easily. What ensued was a flurry of rapid strokes, with the weapons and with fists. Neither could gain the upper hand.

Jim let loose a cry of wordless pain. Sulu glanced at his companion, and was shocked to see that he was dangling from the edge of the platform by his fingertips, at the mercy of another vindictive Romulan. Another jet of fire streamed from a grate, right behind Sulu's enemy, then stopped. Struck with sudden inspiration, Hikaru punched his assailant in the jaw, then knocked him backwards with a high-flying roundhouse kick.

There was a mechanic beeping noise, and the flames began again, turning the Romulan extra crispy. As soon as he was sure that his enemy was dispatched, Sulu turned around to help Jim...just in time to see his companion's fingers get smashed by the heavily booted foot of his enemy. Jim grimaced and groaned with pain, but held on valiantly. A good thing too, because it was at that exact moment that Sulu thrust his sword through the Romulan's chest and knocked him off the platform. Hikaru held out a hand to Jim, who grabbed it and scrambled onto the platform.

"Thanks," he gasped.

"No problem," replied Sulu, also out of breath. "What do we do now?"

"Olsen had the charges," Jim called over the whistling of the wind. "I say...we do this!"

He reached down and grabbed the phaser one of the Romulans had been carrying. He pointed business end of it at the center of the drill, where there were a bunch of wires and stuff, and opened fire. Sulu did the same with the other phaser on the ground, and soon, the column of flames that had been streaming from the underside of the platform dissipated. They sighed, completely relieved. Then, just as they were catching their breath, another strange object flew down from the skies above, and down to the surface of Vulcan. Jim and Sulu ran to the edge of the platform and stared down.

"Holy-" Jim muttered, too stunned to finish his sentence. Sulu nodded in agreement. What had met their eyes was horrible. Apparently the fiery column had been a drill of some sort, and had burned a hole who knew how deep in the surface of Vulcan. The thing that had just fallen from the sky disappeared into this hole, and second later, a concussion wave rippled through the surrounding area.

"Enterprise," said Jim into his microphone. "They just launched something into Vulcan atmosphere. Beam us up."

"Stay very still," came the tinny reply. "I'm having trouble locking onto your frequency."

At the very moment Jim got his reply, the platform jerked suddenly. Sulu, who was standing extremely close to the edge, pinwheeled his arms for balance as he felt himself starting to slip.

"SULU!" shouted Jim. Sulu didn't answer. How could he? He was already a hundred feet down, and falling faster.

* * *

Dev inspected the consul before her. The oxygen level was low, and her fuel supply was leaking. Apparently she had sustained a few hits from the explosion and was leaking plasma everywhere. But that wasn't what was causing her pod to freak out so much.

_If only I'd taken those piloting courses Jim took. I'm not sure what these mean..._

As far as she could tell, the sensors that were blinking indicated gravity disproportionate to the planets around her. If she were reading it right, then that meant that there was a black hole forming in the center of Vulcan. But such a thing was impossible. Wasn't it? Besides, if there was a black hole, she had pretty much no chance of making it out alive. Her pod's engines were too weak.

Dev gulped. The sensors weren't going away. Something must be wrong with the wiring...right? Deciding to find some way to double check the readings, she opened communications to all channels.

"Broadcasting to all channels...is anyone alive out there?"

Nothing. Swallowing hard, Dev tried again.

"Hello? Someone, please answer!"

* * *

Inside of the bridge of the Enterprise, things weren't looking too good. Chekov, under the orders of Spock, was trying to figure out exactly what the Romulans were doing to Vulcan. He ran scan after scan, watching minute changes in gravity and atmosphere. Suddenly, a small sensor popped on. The young Russian's eyes grew wide, and he began typing furiously on the computer before him. After a minute of calculations, he sat back, looking serious.

"Keptin," he said to Spock, turning to the Vulcan with sad eyes. "If my calculations are correct, zhen it seems zhat zhey are creating a singularity...zat will consume ze planet."

Spock's face was impassive. But there was something there, in the way his eyes and eyebrows twitched, that displayed the inner turmoil he was facing.

"They are...creating a black hole in the center of Vulcan," repeated Spock. Chekov nodded, eyes on his distraught captain.

"Yessir," he replied a second too late.

"How long does the planet have?" queried the Vulcan, all business. Chekov looked back at his calculations, then shrugged.

"Meenutes, sir. Meenutes," whispered the teen. Spock nodded, seemingly unaffected by the news.

"Uhura," the captain called to the young Lieutenant. But there had been no need to call. She was already looking at him sadly, eyes full of the pain she knew he was feeling. Spock seemed to ignore her feelings, and kept right on talking as he rose from the captains chair. "Alert the Vulcan Command Center to initiate a planet wide evacuation. All channels, all frequencies."

"Spock, wait-" started Uhura, running after him as he made his way to the lift. "Where are you going?"

"To evacuate the Vulcan High Council as they are tasked with protecting our cultural history. My parents will be among them," he replied from inside of the lift, reaching for the door controls.

"Can't you just beam them out?" asked the communications officer desperately. Spock looked levelly at her.

"They will be in the Katrik Arc. It is impossible. I must retrieve them myself." He closed the doors. Uhura blinked, hurt. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. It wasn't Spock's fault that he treated her like that. She pressed her earpiece to her ear, and hurried back to her station.

"Vulcan High Command, this is the USS Enterprise," Uhura said, hitting the button for emergency broadcasting. "There has been a device, some sort of high energy pulse drill, lowered into the atmosphere of your planet by a war criminal known as Nero. He is intent on destroying your planet and is somehow creating a black hole in the core of Vulcan. A planet wide evacuation must be ordered immediately so that the survival of as many Vulcans as possible will be ensured."

Her message relayed, she turned a knob on the dashboard before her to switch from broadcasting to receiving. The first thing she heard was, "Your message has been received, Enterprise. We are initiating a planet wide evacuation as I speak."

Then there was a lot of talk in Vulcan on the open channels, and a few Romulan. But there was one voice that seemed to overlay all of them, one very familiar human voice...

"Is anyone alive out there? Hello? Someone please answer!"

* * *

_Meow. (N.) Word to be used in the middle of awkward silences. Count how many people laugh. For every person, give your face a high-five._

_I'm feeling giddy and random right now. I hope you enjoyed the random word and definition. Remember, reviews in the form of flames, criticism, rants, raves, randomness, pi, pie, or kittens will be accepted! Virtual teddy bears with claws and teeth will be awarded to the funniest review! (In case you don't get that reference, watch the original Star Trek episode journey to babel...I think.) _

_Dif tor heh smusma!_

_-Owly _


	10. Chapter 10: Lost

_AAAAND I'm back. Sorry it's been so long-- a lot of stuff's been going on. I had my first figure skating competition (Gold medal, thank you very much), and have started a new unit in bio that requires a lot of studying. (We're doing the human reproductive system...in depth. AWKWARD.)Not to mention the fact that there's been a lot of drama at school....._

_ Anyhoo, good news! Unveiled Creativity is back! Yay! She hasn't died! :) _

_I think Chloes-Cheese gets the bear with fangs and claws for the funniest review!!! Also a huge THANKS to Koryu-Elric (did I spell that right?) for offering to beta my work when I was in need. _

_To everyone else who reviewed: You guys are AMAZING. Welcome to the newcomers of this wacky ride, and HI!!!! to the returning ones. XD_

_To everyone who put me on story alerts/favorites: Even though you are the silent ones out there, I know you still care. That makes me happy on the inside. Why not the outside? Well, because I don't have any chocolate right now. That's why. :D_

_Unfortunately this will be the last chapter for a year or so. Sorry. Life's gotten really intense right now. So, just keep me on your alerts. I might be able to squeak out a chapter in six months, but don't get your hopes up. Well, enjoy this chapter! Read the whole thing-- I'll try to wrap things up as best I can in one chapter. :'(_

* * *

Jim vaulted off of the edge of the platform after Sulu. He pulled his arms in against his sides, squeezed his legs together, and angled himself straight down to maximize the rate of his descent. A part of him-- the more ADHD part-- let out a mental scream of exhilaration. The rest of his mentality-- the portion that was mature (sort of) and brave (most of the time) told the other half, rather eloquently, to shut up.

Sulu was spread out in the classic sky-diving "X" below Jim, trying unsuccessfully to slow down. Kirk tensed, getting ready for the moment of impact, then barreled into Hikaru at a breakneck speed, causing them both to roll wildly out of any semblance of control. He latched onto the pilot with all his strength, wrapping his arms around the man in a great bear hug, then roared over the howl of the wind and directly into Sulu's ear, "I've got you! Pull my chute!"

Sulu struggled against the drag of the air around him and finally managed to slap Jim's shoulder. The chute billowed out, and for a moment they were jerked upwards. Then the most horrifying thing imaginable happened: the strings attached to Jim's suit snapped. Both of them shouted incoherently as the wind started to whistle past their ears again. What just happened? Sulu squeezed his eyes shut. Surely the parachute didn't just--

"ENTERPRISE**,** BEAM US UP!" shouted Jim. "WE'RE FALLING WITHOUT A CHUTE! BEAM US UP!"

* * *

On the ship known as the Narada, Nero was stewing. He stared out of a window in his quarters, gripping a long, sharp weapon convulsively. He had Captain Pike, yes, but he wasn't getting anything _useful_ from him. What was there to do? The man would not break to any form of torture performed on him, be it physical or mental.

"Use the Centurion slugs," a female voice murmured coyly in his ear. Nero spun around, startled, weapon at the ready. He hadn't heard anyone come in.

"Oh. It's you," he mumbled, relieved. He allowed his weapon to drop to his side. The hand of the speaker snaked around his waist, pulling Nero close. He shrugged it off, but it came back again like the plague.

"Yes, it's just me," the girl's voice continued**, **"and I have the slugs. They're in the box."

She pressed closer, holding a small metal box in front of the captain.

"I suggest you... allow Captain Pike to eat one," she continued.

"I will do that," said Nero. "Only if you stop."

"Stop what?" the voice breathed. "This?"

The owner of the voice pressed closer, clinging to him like static. She wound one leg around his own. Nero gritted his teeth and pushed her away. "Yes, that. As the captain, I order you to seduce Ayel. Leave me in peace."

"But he's not as fun," the voice pouted. "He's so...boring after awhile. I mean, I just saw him. You'll be glad to know he's getting the red matter fixed up just like you ordered. But I want to get to _know_ you."

"I will not dishonor my wife's memory by 'getting to know' you."

"Fine. You'll come around, eventually. They all do. After all...I know your deepest secrets."

The girl wriggled a hand in Nero's face, then brushed against his cheek.

"Remember?"

Nero grunted, and the owner of the voice and the attentive hand moved away and out of the room, leaving the box of slugs behind.

_Centurion slugs. Intelligent, to say the least. A pity she knows it..._

* * *

Chekov watched the images of the Enterprise's cameras, horrified, as Jim and Sulu tumbled towards the surface of Vulcan. His brilliant mind had no trouble with the calculations. At their current velocity, with the heavier-than-Earth Vulcan gravity....Jim and Sulu had a little more than twenty seconds before they were...killed.

"Enterprise**, ****NOW**!" came Jim's voice over the intercom. "Do it now!"

Chekov gazed, transfixed with fear, as Sulu and Jim drew steadily closer and closer to the planet's surface. One of the officers in the transporter room was speaking frantically to Jim, even though he probably couldn't hear a word she was saying past the wind in his ears.

"I can't get a lock on you, you're moving too fast!" she cried hysterically.

"ENTERPRISE**, **WHERE ARE YOU?" Jim hollered.

Staring at the screen, analyzing the possible complications of locking onto the away team falling towards the surface of a planet with a black hole forming in its center, inspiration struck. Chekov suddenly leapt to his feet, pointing to the screen with excitement.

"I can do zat! I CAN DO ZAT!" he shouted, turning to the girl who had filled in for Sulu. "TAKE ZE CON!!"

He sprinted out of the bridge, heading for the transporter room. He shoved people out of the way without an "excuse me."

"MOVE MOVE MOVE!!"

He burst into the control room, mind full of more calculations. He estimated that Jim and Sulu had fifteen seconds, if that.

"OUT OF ZE WAY!" Chekov yelled at the woman sitting before the transporter controls. "I CAN LOCK ON!"

"ENTERPRISE!" Jim called. The woman slid out of her seat, handing the headset to Chekov without a hesitation.

"Holdonholdonholdon!!" Chekov yelled back. He took a little toggle switch in his hand, staring intently at the screen before him. Jim and Sulu could be seen quite clearly, ten seconds from total destruction. In the background, there was obvious destruction and chaos. Rocks were sliding into huge chasms that had opened up in the ground mere moments before, and fire was spewing out of the ground in great gouts.

"Compensating for grawitational pull and....gotcha!!" the Russian ensign shouted, delighted. The panel before him suddenly glowed with the words "Target locked."

On screen, Jim and Sulu began to shine with pre-transport threads of light. Chekov gulped. This was going to be close. Perhaps too close for comfort. Or even...survival?

* * *

Uhura pressed her headset further into her ear, unsure if she was hearing correctly.

"Please, someone answer me!" came the voice again. Quickly, the communications lieutenant flipped a switch on her dashboard so that she could fully communicate with the person on the other end.

"This is the Enterprise, Lieutenant Uhura," she said shakily. "Who's there?"

"Who do you think? It's me, Dev," came the terse reply. "Look, what's going on? I'm in an escape pod-- don't ask, long story-- and all the sensors are going haywire. I don't know how to read 'em right, but if I did, I'd say there was a black hole forming in the middle of Vulcan. But...there's no way that could be happening."

There was a long, pregnant pause. Then, as an afterthought, she added, "Could there?"

"Where are you?" replied Uhura, frowning to herself as she tried to scan Vulcan atmosphere for Dev's pod.

"Not sure," said Devon, hesitating. She knew there was something wrong-- otherwise Uhura would have told her she was stupid for asking such a silly question. "Why?"

"Look, there is a black hole forming in the planet's core," said the lieutenant gravely. "If you're too close, you'll be sucked into it. Killed. Or worse."

There was silence on the other end for a moment, then a nervous chuckle. "Then I guess I'd better get out of the way, shouldn't I?"

"Can you?" Uhura asked. The pod's coordinates had come back, and Dev was approximately two kilometers from Vulcan. Close. Too close.

"I don't know," Dev answered, sounding merely mildly interested about her rather dangerous situation. "How far away to I need to be safe from the black hole?"

"I...I'm not sure. Hang on." The lieutenant turned to the girl beside her who seemed to be running some kind of calculations on the computer. "Listen, I have a survivor of one of the ships here. She's in a pod and two kilometers from Vulcan. How far away from the black hole does she need to be in order to be safe?"

"I haven't finished yet!" snapped the girl. "All I know is that we're not far enough away. And if we aren't, she's a goner."

Uhura pressed the earpiece back into her ear and licked her lips. "Listen, Devon? Apparently you're too close. Are you sure you can get away?"

"Not anywhere fast, and definitely not far. Besides, my oxygen is running out."

Uhura thought for a moment, trying to remember procedure for situations like this. Was there a specific thing she was supposed to do or say? _Aw, to heck with it,_ she thought. _Just save lives._ "We can either beam you up via transporter or drag you in with a tractor beam."

"Transporter. It's quicker."

"OK. Give me a few minutes to contact the guys in the transport room..."

"Uhura? I don't have a few minutes. It's now or never."

"How can you tell?"

There was a snorting sound from Dev's end. Either she was amused by something, or scared silly. _Probably both_, decided Uhura.

"The surface of Vulcan is starting to ripple. That's never a good sign."

* * *

Chekov watched, paralyzed with tension as Jim and Sulu's forms began to glow with more intensity. Nanoseconds from going two dimensional on the planet's surface, they disappeared from the screen to appear seconds later on the Enterprise with a resounding CRASH. Sparks flew everywhere, and the pad below them cracked-- apparently it had done nothing to dispel their momentum.

Chekov jumped to his feet, grinning like a little kid on on Christmas morning and looking two times as cute. He shouted something in unintelligible Russian, obviously a happy exclamation of some kind.

Groaning, Jim and Sulu disentangled themselves and started to sit up. There was silence from the rest of the room, each one of the occupants staring disbelievingly at the two men who had just escaped death by mere moments. Jim pushed himself up onto his elbows, cradling one hand carefully on the crook of his arm. Sulu looked at him, then glanced back down at his hands.

"Thanks," he muttered, a little abashed.

"No problem," Jim replied. Suddenly, Spock burst into the room. He looked more upset than any Vulcan had a right to be, and proved it as he ordered his groaning first mate and pilot off the pad without so much as a "are you OK?"

"I'm beaming to the surface," he explained gruffly as Sulu and Jim shot him disbelieving looks.

"The surface of what?" asked Jim, completely stunned at what was either supreme stupidity or extreme bravery that was coming out of the Vulcan's mouth. "Spock, you can't go down there!"

Spock ignored him, bending over into a crouch. "Energize!" The familiar yellow-white light appeared, blurring the captain's form, then gradually whisking his atoms away...to have him reappear on screen, standing on a rock on the surface of Vulcan. The occupants of the room-- Chekov, Jim, Sulu, and two officers-- watched the monitor. No one noticed the frantic beeping of the communicator that hung on the wall next to them...

* * *

"Uhura to transport room!" snarled the lieutenant over and over again. No one answered her call. She groaned with frustration. Dev's life was on the line here, and she couldn't do anything about it!

"Zoe!" she called on sudden inspiration. Her friend looked up from where she was furiously scribbling on a PADD a few feet away.

"Yes?" Zoe asked irritably. She was an ensign and had been a good friend of Uhura's for a few years. Luckily, she had been assigned to the Enterprise as well. "What is it?"

"I need you to get down to the transport room as fast as you can," Uhura said. She explained as quickly as she could about Dev's situation, rattled off the coordinates that were coming up on her screen, and concluded with, "I need them to beam her up."

Zoe nodded her understanding and raced off. Uhura watched her go, though without much hope. A sudden thought struck her...Why weren't the guys down there operating the transporter answering? Had something happened? Something to...Spock?

* * *

The transporter room tensed up for a minute as they watched the entrance to the Katrik Arc on screen. Spock had disappeared within it amid the rumbling and vibrating of the crumbling world around him, and now was being awaited breathlessly by his crew. One of the transport pad officers, once the picture became clear of how badly things were down on Vulcan, had the presence of mind to summon the doctor. People were going to need patching up once they got on board.

Almost as soon as the message had been sent for the CMO to get his backside up here, an ill tempered Bones strode into the room, looking for all the world like a human sized storm cloud. A black storm cloud. One ready to wreak havoc with the world if the mood should strike it – and the mood had struck.

"Well?" snapped McCoy, staring each occupant of the room in the eyes. "Why'm I here instead of looking after my patients in sickbay?"

Jim sighed. He was all too used to this side of his friend. Steeling himself for an explosion, he stepped forward carefully, smiling sadly. This was exactly how he would treat Dev if she were the one about to blow up. How strange....It's like Bones is channeling her spirit. _Ooh! Maybe he is!_

"Look, Bones, we need you to take the Vulcans to the medical deck when **–** **,**" he began, trying to reason with him.

"Jim, what the heck did you do to your hand?" interrupted the doctor gruffly. He had noticed that his friend was cradling one hand in a strange way, and so pulled it away from the other's chest. Kirk rolled his eyes and struggled to retrieve the hand.

"Ugh, gerroff!"

"Not now, Jim! You're too dangerous to let loose with a broken hand!"

"But it's not brok-"

"Shut up," Bones snarled. Jim sighed and surrendered his hand to the inspection of Bones, rolling his eyes to high heaven.

"Did you hear about De-" he tried again, but stopped with a grunt of pain as Bones jerked his hand a little more than absolutely necessary.

"Yeah," muttered the doctor after a moment of awkward silence. "I heard."

Jim said nothing in return. There was nothing more to say.

The rest of the room paid little attention to this somewhat amusing (yet depressing) exchange. They were watching, breathless as their captain ran out of the collapsing archway of the Katric Ark with five Vulcans and a human in tow. Spock held his communicator up to his mouth and said, "Spock to Enterprise. Beam us up!"

Chekov returned his eyes to the controls and started to lock onto the Vulcans with Spock.

"One moment, pleez, Keptin," he muttered, frowning with concentration. It was at this moment that an agitated girl in a red uniform dashed into the room.

"There's a survivor!" she shouted breathlessly. "From another ship! QUICK!"

Jim and Bones spun around, astonished.

"There's a survivor?" repeated Jim stupidly. Bones merely stared. It was a stupid hope. A one in a one million chance. But it was there.

Zoe, for it was she who relayed this dire message, paid no attention. She ran over to the two officers who were watching Chekov work the controls of the transporter, and started to rattle off coordinates. The two officers stared at her.

"Well?" she asked them. They shrugged helplessly. The transporter started to flash white and yellow, signaling that they had locked on the targets. Chekov frowned at his consul.

"Transport in fiwe...four...zhree...two..." he said quietly. Then the unthinkable happened. Spock's mother, who was standing near the edge of a precipice, fell as the rock beneath her crumbled. There was a hoarse, not at all Vulcan-like shout of "MOTHER!" and Chekov fumbled frantically with the controls, trying to keep the machine locked onto the falling woman.

"I'm losing her!" he shouted, trying his very hardest to keep her with the others. Spock, along with the Vulcans, were starting to appear on the pad before them. But not the human-- Spock's mother. "I'm losing her! **I'mlosingher**!"

The computer blipped, "Target lost." Chekov sat back, defeated. His young face crumpled. "I...lost her."

The Council of Vulcans and Spock appeared on the pad. Spock's hand was still outstretched towards the place his mother should have appeared. His brown eyes, noticeably human, were full of pain. His lips moved quietly, forming one word, laden with emotion. "Mother."

* * *

**_Ok, honestly, how many of you believed that I'd abandon you?!? APRIL FOOLS!!! I'd never do that to you guys! Sorry if you got mad or scared or upset-- but I'm in a giddy mood. :) Don't forget to leave a review, specially if I got you on that one. A happy April Fool's day to you all, and live long and prosper!_**

**_-Owly :) _**


	11. Chapter 11: That Is NOT Human

**I'm back...again! :) **

**Sorry about tricking everyone. Hope I didn't give anyone a heart attack. XD **

**Enjoy the chapter!  
**

* * *

Spock seemed to overcome the shock of his mother's death extraordinarily quickly.

"I need to get to the bridge. Sulu, come with me," he said, striding out of the room. Jim watched him go silently, wondering how the heck he had gotten over his mother's _death _so quickly. It wasn't right. Of course, there was pressing matters at hand, but _still. _

The Vulcans walked off the pad and waited patiently for someone to pay attention to them. Bones, who was supposed to be the one taking care of them, did no such thing. He turned to Zoe, totally absorbed in the fact that there seemed to be a survivor out in space.

"There's a survivor? Who?"

"A girl. In a pod. Very close to Vulcan, and who's about to be sucked into the freaking black hole that's starting to form!" said Zoe angrily, turning to the operators of the transporter. "Do something! She's going to _die!_"

Chekov looked up from where he was studying his hands silently. His eyes were dull, almost lifeless. "I ken try," he said softly. "What are ze coordinates?"

Zoe told him at top speed. He nodded and turned to the computer, muttering to himself anxiously in Russian and hunched as if he carried the world on his shoulders.

Bones looked at Jim. Jim stared back. After three years of being roommates, they knew exactly what the other was thinking. It was almost like mind reading, the way their thoughts followed the same course. Or perhaps it was the influence that Devon had had on them. No matter the reason, both were weighing the possibilities of the survivor being their friend. Of those, the chances of the occupant of the pod escaping the pull of the black hole...Well, neither of them had to have the mind of a Vulcan to see that the probability of anyone surviving this particular situation was little to none.

One of the officers opened communications with the pod. Jim and Bones tensed as they waited for the answer of the escape craft's occupant.

"Enterprise to unidentified craft," said one of the officers, a woman with short brown hair. "Are you okay in there?"

"Not really," came a female voice. For a moment, Jim and Bones just stood there, stunned into complete silence. Then the realization of what this meant dawned on them, and they staggered. _Dev's alive! Alive!_

Jim grinned widely, and Bones' face lit up like a light with its switch suddenly thrown. They laughed all of a sudden, ecstatic. But reality had to kick in sometime-- and it did. Hard.

"Dev!" shouted Jim, diving for the communicator frantically.

"JIM??" came Devon's voice right back at him. "Jim, is that you?"

"Of course it's me! What's going on?" Jim replied. There was a snort from Devon as she laughed at the absurdity of the question.

"I'm the one stuck in the freaking pod waiting for the great bloody black hole to swallow me WHOLE!" she responded. "Tell me how you're going to get me outta here and tell me pretty freaking _fast_."

Jim looked at Chekov, who was fiddling with controls as quick as he possibly could.

"Ze grawitational pull is too strong," muttered the whiz kid. "I do not know eef dees will work."

Dev heard his murmur. "Who's that? Look, just tell me if I'm gonna get sucked up by that thing," she said quietly. "**I**won't freak. I promise. "

"It might work," said Jim roughly. "It's going to work."

The transporter target display was hopping wildly around in space. The gravity of the black hole was changing so rapidly that the sensors were having a hard time locking onto anything, much less Dev.

"Can you pull me in with the tractor beam?" asked Devon. It was Chekov who answered.

"No. Ze beam works with ze preencipals of grawity. We will need a great beeg helping of luck eef you want to surwiwe. But you weel surwiwe. I deed not save meester Spock's muzzer..." By the end, the teen had trailed off into an introspective mutter. Jim put a hand on his shoulder, only to have it thrown off as Chekov jumped into the air, completely and totally surprised.

"EET EEZ LOCKED ON!!" he shouted. As quick as they possibly could, the other two officers pulled the levers for transport. On the screen, they could see Vulcan beginning to be consumed by the black hole. Huge chunks of the planet were disappearing, to be replaced by eerie nothingness.

The transport pad started to blink, and whirls of light started to spin the vague outline of Devon into the Enterprise. Bones and Jim stared at the pad, eyes wide. Chekov was staring too- but not at the form slowly materializing before him. With the external cameras on the Enterprise, they could see Vulcan imploding upon itself. The huge planet was crumbling. Chekov stared, transfixed with horror. Then everything went haywire, but it happened so quickly that it occurred within a span of about one and a half seconds, and so it must be told as if in slow motion.

First, the form of Devon flickered more and more upon the transporter pad. Jim and Bones were horrified by the sight of her **–** her nose was bloody, one of her eyes was swollen, and an ugly bruise was starting to form on her temple.

Second, Vulcan was totally absorbed by the black hole. All the Vulcans in the room watched impassively, though one woman squeezed her eyes shut for a moment.

Third, the pod Devon had been in was completely destroyed. It, like Vulcan, was sucked up by the singularity.

Fourth, Dev started to really materialize on the transport pad. She flickered, and cried out.

It was over.

* * *

**Well, that's it for now! Expect the next chapter soon! I have to go to bed now-- I just got home from a LOOONG weekend at my church retreat. It was awesome. **

**Oh! On a side note, I created an equation to prove that Latin equals math (And if you know ANYTHING about the two subjects, you'll say that that's impossible. Think again.)**

**Latin=Love=Math**

**Through the transitive property of equality: Latin=Math. YAY ME! Haha. Until next time!**

**Live long and prosper! (And review! Reviews are goooood!)**

**-Owly**


	12. Chapter 12: Sometimes It's Better To Die

_Hey! Next chapter!!! :) _

_Duckiesgomoo: bahaha! I don't know why, but something about usernames that contain anything pertaining to ducks makes me laugh. (In a good way, of course.) I don't know why....From your review, I have a nagging suspicion that you won't like this chapter. Sorry. :D_

_Koryu Elric: Maybe. -Shifty eyes-_

_**Disclaimer: No, I don't own Star Trek. I'd like to, but alas, alack, I don't. Maybe if I go throw myself into a black hole, I'll arrive back when Gene Roddenberry was creating this, and I'll be able to give him a lot of ideas. THEN, and only then will I be able to say that I own this. Until then, I only own Dev...-sniff-**_

**_Enjoy!! _**

* * *

Spock walked onto the bridge, looking for all the world as if he had just come back from something as normal as a bathroom break. But Uhura knew him well enough to see beyond the cold exterior. He looked haunted. The slant of his eyebrows and the slightly green pallor of his face were unnatural. In short, he was upset. Very, very upset.

"We must move out of the radius of the singularity," he said to Sulu, who had followed his captain to the bridge. "Warp factor two."

"Yessir," mumbled the pilot, who took his place at the helm. He frowned as the list of damages to the ship came up, and the voice of the computer said, "Warp factor two is not possible without risk of further damage to the ship and its crew. Proceed?"

"Spock!" Uhura cried, jumping up from her station. Then she got her emotions in check, composing herself a little. "Um, sir, I would like to inform you that a survivor has been located in the destruction of the Farragut. I believe that the transport team is attempting to beam her up as we speak –"

"If we do not move out of the area immediately, this ship will be pulled into the vortex of the black hole, Lieutenant. It is not logical for a ship four hundred to be sacrificed for one girl."

"But it'll only take a moment or two!"

"If they can manage it within the time it takes to get us to warp speed, then they may do so."

"Captain!" called Sulu, wiping sweat off of his forehead with the back of one hand even though it was quite cool in the room. "Warp not possible, sir! Not without great risk to ourselves."

Spock closed his eyes and took a calming breath. "Then proceed and use sublight speeds, Mr. Sulu." He looked at Uhura. "Tell transport that they have minutes until we are out of range of the transporter."

Uhura nodded her thanks with a tight lipped smile and returned to her post.

* * *

"I used the slugs," Nero said to the female figure next to him. She laughed, flipping her long, brown hair over a shoulder flirtatiously.

"Did they work?" she asked. Nero nodded.

"Exceptionally well. Though Pike might not be so keen on them."

"Excellent. Didn't I tell you that I have more than one use?" the girl replied, raising eyebrows that were arched past the human norm.

"You have one use, and you proved yourself incapable of it long ago," grunted the captain.

"What was it supposed to be? My father never specified."

"You were assigned to this ship to get us in and out of places we couldn't by ourselves. And you've been doing a pretty bad job of it. We thought you had _connections_. But you're not so helpful anymore. Not now." Nero turned around, inspecting the computer before him. It showed the black hole that now replaced Vulcan. He smiled.

"That's because we're hundreds of years in the past," groaned the woman. "How am I supposed to get people to help us when anyone I've ever known is probably in diapers? My husband, for example...right now, he's about 27, give or take. It's awful."

"You had a husband? I find that quite disturbing."

"Never mind about that. I've offered to help with other things."

"I find your services rather disgusting. Please refrain from mentioning them to me again."

"But you _know _you want to," she said again, sliding a finger over his cheek.

"In actuality, I don't," replied Nero, shoving her away.

"But this is a celebration. We've finally gotten our revenge. We should at least take a break from constant work! The rest of your crew have replicated some pretty good champagne. Why can't you come down with us? Then afterwards, maybe I can-"

"I am seeking to rid the universe of Starfleet because of the death of my wife. I will not disgrace her."

"Ok, ok. Be that way." She stuck out her lower lip and pushed a stray lock of hair out of her face and behind an ear.

"I wish I had never hired the help of your family," Nero grumbled. "You're more trouble than you're worth."

"I didn't _ask _for this, you know. I had a life, back in our time. A life, a future, and a good job. Then my father called me in, telling me that the family business was on the line and I'd better hightail over to you guys so that I could help you with your illegal mining ventures. I was _going _to be a doctor**, **you know. I don't _like _killing people."

"You have proved that any personal issues you have with violence do not hinder your ability to use your specialized skills for the good of the universe."

"Well it's all part of the job description, isn't it?" she sighed. "And good of the universe? Please. Never mind, though. I have to go. Ayel wanted to see me."

"I need Ayel on the bridge."

"Fine. I'll tell him you're getting in the way."

"I am the captain of this ship. No low down scum of some mafia leader's daughter is going to tell me what to do."

"I'm not," she grumbled.

"Leave."

"I am. Geez." She stalked out of the room. Nero watched her go, almost sadly. He wasn't really a cruel man at heart, just rather closed minded. It pained him to see such a young talent go to waste like that. But then again, she was a Tstill. And they were a family to be watched. One could never trust a Tstill...

* * *

On the icy planet known only as Delta Vega, a figure garbed in furs stood silently against a bank of ice, watching the sky. Half of the figure's face was covered from the wind and snow; only the eyes were visible. They were brown eyes, distinctly human, and sparkling with unshed tears. Slowly, one mittened hand came up and rubbed against the eyes tiredly.

In the sky, Vulcan collapsed in on itself. The figure bowed its head slowly and stood motionless for a moment. Then, as if suddenly remembering something, it hurried back into the mouth of a cave not far off. The darkness swallowed it up, and the surface of the planet was once again unmarred, save the sleet and snow.

* * *

Captain Pike breathed evenly through his nose, trying to keep as still as humanly possible. Each beat of his weary heart racked his body terribly, and each breath was almost unbearable. The light shining in his eyes created the same amount of pain in his head that six inch nails might.

The pain was bad, yes. But those were less harmful side effects of the toxin that slimy, wriggling creature they had shoved down his gullet was secreting into his bloodstream. The almost unbearable part of the chemicals was the hallucinations. They showed him pictures-- horrible, horrible pictures-- of things he had seen in his life before. Bad things.

_The landing party of some fifteen ensigns, none over the age of twenty five, all lying dead and burned upon the ground of some desolate planet he had visited in his young days of captaincy. Their deaths had been his fault. At least, that's how he felt. How was he supposed to stop a group of over one hundred aliens from killing his crew and taking him captive? It had been his fault, all his fault. Pike saw each red-shirted ensign rise from the ground. Blood ran down their chins from their mouths, their eyes gouged out and gaping. Each one cursed him, cursed him to the hottest pit of whatever afterlife he believed in for letting them die...._

Yes. The hallucinations were terrible, emotionally and physically draining. But that wasn't the worst part. No, the worst part was that he had actually told them what they had wanted to know. For the first ten minutes under the influence of the Centurion slug, he had been in a kind of stupor. He had fought with all his might to stop himself from talking. He'd actually bitten his tongue until it bled so that he couldn't talk. But then they shoved another one down his throat that joined the first, and within minutes a new stream of toxins had slipped into his blood. He didn't know anything after that, but had woken up awhile later to a very pleased Nero thanking him for the wonderful information.

This made the hallucinations and the pain much easier to bear, in a way. It was fitting punishment for a traitor to Starfleet. Maybe it would be better if he died...

A soft hand fluttered against Pike's wrist. He opened his eyes, surprised and alarmed. Did they want more information? What new form of torture would they try now?

"They gave you _two_?" questioned an incredulous voice.

Pike didn't answer.

"You're lucky you're not _dead_. Geez, I'm surprised you _aren't. _You must have the constitution of an ox! Whatever an ox is."

Pike would have smiled if smiling hadn't hurt so danged much.

"If Nero sees me doing this, I'll catch it. You owe me one."

Pike squeezed his eyes shut. Just what he needed-- to be in the debt to a criminal. There was a prick of pain in his arm, then blessed coolness. The fiery, piercing agony of the slugs retreated slowly from his fingers and toes, leaving them twitching and mobile.

"That'll dilute the stuff those slugs are putting into you for a few hours. Enjoy it while you can."

Pike turned his head, wincing. Through the fog of his mind, he saw a girl's face looking down at him framed by long brown hair. He frowned. He recognized that face...But where had he seen it before?

His brain wasn't responding. After all those hours of nonstop torture, it was finally shutting down.

"You...**,**" Pike started to say, but his voice was too soft. He tried harder. "You're..."

A flash of worry lit up the girl's eyes for a moment, and she pulled out another hypo.

"We can't have that now**,** can we?" she murmured. "Sleep tight."

She pressed the hypo to his neck. There was a small pinch as it was injected, and Pike fell into a deep, drug induced sleep.

* * *

_Quick note: this has been so long in coming because of **awkward **biology units. We were covering the endocrine system and...the reproductive system. In depth. AWKWARD. Then we had to memorize all this junk and stuff....Yeah. Now, however, we're doing the digestive system!! YAY (not.) On the bright side, we're doing pre-calc and trig in math class, so that makes life better. (In case you didn't read my profile, I LOVE math.)_

_Anyway, I want to know your opinion about this chapter! And I want to know your favorite subject (no, lunch and PE don't count.) _

_Live long and prosper!!!_

_-Owly_


	13. Chapter 13: To Be Contemplated

_Hey all! I haven't died.....Yeah. I'm a mean person for leaving things this long. :( Anyway, this'll probably be the last update before summer vacation (which is only in 9 school days, EEEEK!) I'm going to die on exams. Bleh. Anyway, thanks to everyone who has favorited/put this on alerts/reviewed. You guys make me want to write and give me great ideas to incorporate into my poor excuse for a fanfiction. _

_Enjoy!_

* * *

From her cramped escape pod seat, Devon felt the coldness and tickling of the pre-transport buzz take over her body. She didn't like it-- the feeling made it seem like she was about to itch out of her skin.

Then came the fuzziness of transport, like she was floating in a cloud of whiteness. Beyond the white, she saw something smash into the hull of her pod. Her vision flickered for a moment, and she saw the inside of a transport room. Her two best friends in the world-- Jim and Bones-- stood, staring fixedly at her with wide, stony eyes. Then she was in the pod again, and flames surrounded her. They scorched her hands and her face...Dev smelled burning hair and burning clothes. She grimaced, wondering what was causing the horrid stench. Then she realized it was herself.

Another film of white encased her vision, and she saw the transport room. There was something wrong. She wasn't materializing as she should be, and the heat from the flames in the pod still warmed her face and hands to an uncomfortable degree. Then there was a sudden jerk and the world solidified quickly around her. Devon collapsed to the pad's floor and everything went black for a moment. But her body, sensing pending doom a few minutes too late, sent a stream of adrenaline through her blood to her brain. She opened her bleary eyes.

_Lights. Pretty lights. And they're perfectly circular! None of this "dark tunnel" junk, but spherical lights...orderly lights....Mike would be happy...._

_MIKE!_

Devon sat up quickly-- too quickly. The world spun around and turned black, then white, then black again. With her eyes squeezed shut, Dev fell backwards. When she opened her eyes again, the lights were back in their place above her.

_Pretty lights. Like Christmas._

"Oh no, here she goes again," someone groaned from her left. Devon stopped thinking about the lights for a minute. Had she been saying that _out loud_?

"At least it proves that her cognitive capabilities are still intact," someone else huffed from her right. "That's more than I was hoping for."

"You're such an optimist."

"I'm a doctor, Jim. No one said I had to be optimistic."

"If you're not optimistic," murmured Dev. "Then the patient will be sad. Or mad. Or insane. And then where would you be?"

Both Jim and McCoy stared down at Devon, surprised.

"Well now we know that her brain's in order. Or not," said Jim, laughing.

"That's not _funny_," Bones growled.

"Sure it is, Doc," Dev replied faintly. "Loads of funny. Hilarious, actually."

"There's something wrong with her, all right," McCoy said to Jim. "Help me get her up and into sickbay."

Devon's eyes flew wide open. _Sickbay? _She put her hands on the floor and struggled to push herself upward, while at the same time attempting to roll out of their grasp.

"Sickbay?" she was saying as she moved. "I don't think so."

But her battered condition was no match for her two best friends. They had her propped between them, like one might prop up a tower that keeps falling from side to side.

"You're a dang doctor," grumbled Bones. "I'm gonna need you in sickbay anyway. I just need to patch you up first."

Devon wasn't listening to her friend's complaints. She was staring at the small crowd of Vulcans, a strange expression on her face. Jim surveyed her cautiously. A mixture of grief, worry, and strangely _fear. _But what was there to be afraid of?

He squeezed Dev's shoulder gently. Maybe there _was_ something wrong with his friend...

"Bones! Please tell me that you aren't supposed to be taking care of these people," she said, snapping from her reverie like a rubber band. "If you are, you're breaking the Medical Code of Conduct Number-"

"Yes, I know," McCoy interrupted, rolling his eyes. "Forgive me, but they seemed to be in one piece. It was _you _I was worried about!"

"As touching as that is, Doctor McCoy," sighed Devon, "and as happy as I am that you actually care if I'm alive or not, these are your _patients. _Let me help you get them to sickbay."

Bones chuckled at her as someone would a precocious child. "Not so fast, girlie. You're not getting out of this that easily." He looked at Jim imperiously. "And you aren't either!"

Kirk swore under his breath and turned around. Dev was frowning at him.

"What did you do _this _time?" she asked. Bones responded for him.

"He broke his hand."

"What?" she screeched, grabbing her friend by the shoulders and staring deep into his eyes, as if searching for an answer to his accident prone-ness. "Only you, James Kirk, can break your hand while sitting in a transport room. What were you doing, fighting Romulans or something?"

Jim looked mystified. "But I wasn't-"

"I mean, it wouldn't be bad of you to give them a good pummeling, but _really, _you were _right here the whole time_! How the heck did you break your stupid hand?"

"I _was _fighting Romulans."

Dev stopped mid sentence. Her lips formed a small "o," and she raised an eyebrow. Worry, annoyance, curiosity, anger, and humor flitted across her face in quick succession.

"The things you get up to when I'm not here," she huffed at last. "And I'm expecting a full story."

Jim smiled tightly, trying to slink away to the door. Devon stopped him with a mere glare. "You're going to do that while I'm taping up your hand, by the way."

Kirk looked defeated. Bones chuckled. "I guess you're feeling back to normal," he said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Devon snapped. She turned to the three who were operating the transport systems. "Thanks guys. I wouldn't be here without you."

She smiled a dazzling smile at the three of them. But with scorched hair, a black eye, and blood leaking from various cuts across her face, the effect was less than reassuring. Even so, Chekov blushed crimson and ducked his head, staring at the controls like they held the answer to life, the universe, everything.

"Well," Bones groaned, "I guess you're feeling better. But I'll wager the adrenaline high'll wear off after awhile, so we'd better get you and Jimmy boy here to sickbay, along with our Vulcan...guests."

At the mention of the word Vulcan, Dev stiffened slightly. It was so small a gesture, that McCoy almost missed it. Almost. Carefully filing the gesture away in his mental "ruminate upon this later" drawer, he ushered the serene Vulcans into the hallway.

* * *

_Sooo.....whatd'ya think? _

_Random fact of the day: Almost everyone who's read this story seems, from their profile at least, to be someone I'd be friends with. Like, a lot of you like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, chocolate, duct tape, practical jokes...the list goes on and on. Great minds think alike, that's what I say!_

_Please review and tell me how much you hate me for leaving this update for soooo long. _

_-Owly_

_P.S. Thanks to my beta, UnveiledCreativity! She's done a lot, even though she's SWAMPED with work!_


	14. Chapter 14: This Time It's You, Not Them

Sickbay was full to bursting with Vulcans, injured crew members, doctors, and nurses, but the noise level was barely louder than a whisper. It was as if the world had just come crashing down. In a sense, it had. And it showed in the faces of every man and woman in the room. Even the Vulcans wore a carefully guarded face, as if they might break down at any moment.

The mood, to put it lightly, was somber. But for some reason, Bones could not stop himself from smiling whenever the name "Devon" came into his mind. Or "Jim." But more "Devon."

Likewise for Jim, whenever he thought the words "Devon is alive," a grin would come to his face. Then he would think "_I'm_ alive!" and the grin would stretch wider. But then reality would hit in: billions of people had died and the grin would fade.

Devon herself had managed to give Bones the slip, rushing away as soon as they had entered doors of sickbay and McCoy had been assailed by most of the medical personnel. She had assigned herself to the duty of checking the Vulcans for shock.

"Good," she murmured, carefully holding a light up in front of one of the Vulcan's eyes. The Vulcan obligingly looked at the other finger Devon held next to her ear as she checked for abnormal pupil dilation. There was none. Not satisfied, she pulled a small medical scanner from a pocket on the biobed where the Vulcan lady was sitting and carefully scanned the woman's body. She looked at the results and frowned. If only her head didn't hurt so much! Then maybe she would remember what Vulcan medical scans were supposed to look like.

"Not good enough for me," grumbled Devon, rubbing her eyes (and wincing as she remembered her bruises a moment too late**).**

"If I may inquire, what is 'not good enough**'**?" asked the Vulcan lady.

"I...**,**" said Devon, trailing off. She glanced suspiciously at her patient. "I need to ask a question of one of my colleagues," she finally answered. She sighed and walked over to the closest nurse, who sported a ridiculous blond haircut and was ordering the medical ensigns around with words of steel.

"No, don't you dare give that to the Vulcans, it'll _kill_ them," she was saying to one as Devon walked up. "Shut up and give them _this._"

"Hey, uh...**,**" Dev said, tapping her on the shoulder. The nurse turned around.

"Nurse Chapel," she informed Devon, looking her up and down with a critical eye. "Sit down and I'll examine you. You look like you need it."

"I'm fine. Dangit, I'm a doctor, not a patient," Devon snarled. Couldn't someone ask a question without getting yelled at to be doctored up? But the ferocity melted off her face as she realized that she had just used one of Bones' favorite phrases. _Spend too much_ _time with him and I'll start using his gosh-awful Southern accent_**_._**She giggled. Nurse Chapel frowned, apprehensive of the mental stability of the girl before her.

"Sit down," she ordered again. Dev resisted with all the strength of her will.

"I'm a doctor, I _told_ you," she repeated, waving a hand in the air to accentuate the point. "Just tell me if these look right."

She pulled out the screen of the medical scan, showing the nurse the results. Chapel inspected them, frowning.

"Vulcan? Yeah, she's fine. See here?" she pointed to the heart, which was located where a normal human's stomach would be. "That's where things'll go bad first if something's wrong. Check the heart, then the nervous system. Standard Vulcan inspection."

"Thanks," Dev said gratefully. She turned and tried to slink away.

"Not so fast!"

Spock had refused to be examined by the medical crew. He did not want anyone, especially in this time of trouble, to pick up on the strange hormones that were racing through his blood, as he was sure there were. Spock knew that he was sufficiently trained and too intelligent to give up a life's worth of meditation and logic just because of his mother's death. In fact, he should not even have an emotional attachment to her. Yes, it was a pity that she had died. The loss of life was illogical and highly disgusting. It had nothing to do with the fact that she was his mother, the one who had carried him for a total of eight months, seventeen days, and nine hours before giving birth to him.

These thoughts, though logical, cut Spock to the core. He thought that he was familiar with the clarity of mind that was required to keep emotions in check. Apparently, the chemicals that were produced by his brain to stimulate his emotions were overreacting to the stress that was being put on him.

Yes. That was it. Now about that captain's log...

"We have had no word from Captain Pike. We therefore must classify him as a prisoner of the war criminal who has identified himself as Nero, who has destroyed my home planet, Vulcan, along with its six point four billion inhabitants. Of that number, it is estimated that no more than ten thousand have survived."

Spock paused. The words were not coming easily to him. In fact, his vocal chords were feeling rather tight. It was a strange feeling. He swallowed hard, and continued his entry.

"However, the essence of our culture has been preserved in the elders of my race that now reside upon this ship. It is strange to think that now I am part of an endangered species."

Yes. Strange indeed. Suddenly, Spock needed to be out of the Bridge. He needed to be away from the probing eyes of the crew- his crew- who would look to him for advice and leadership. He needed to be alone, sit, and meditate.

In one fluid motion, Spock had risen from his chair. He felt a few pairs of eyes upon him, and forced a look of nonchalance onto his face. But there was one crew member that he knew would not be fooled by such an act.

Walking stiffly towards the lift, Spock felt this crew member staring. He both desperately craved and fiercely repulsed the attention. The lift opened, and he stepped in...

A moment later, a pair of footsteps followed him in. Spock did not turn to see who it was. There was only one person it could be.

The lift's doors closed. He had still not turned around. Warm hands tilted his face towards _her_, the only one who would pursue him. His body followed unwillingly.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry."

Dev swore and turned around reluctantly. Bones, arms folded, was staring at her from across the room. He waved a hypo threateningly.

"Si'down and don't talk," he barked, marching over and pointing to an empty biobed. "I've let you have your fun."

"Just let me give my patient a-"

"Shut up."

"You know it's good for you!" interjected Jim, who had followed Bones with great amusement on his face. Devon glared at him. _Traitor_, she mouthed. He just grinned. "You look like crud. Let Bones do his job."

"Thanks. I can always count on you to make me feel better," she replied testily, trying to bat away McCoy's scanner as he held it in front of her face then moved it slowly down the length of her body before sitting her down rather forcefully on the bed.

"You're welcome," Jim said, flashing her his trademark grin.

"Bones, just let me finish up with my patient, I promise, then I'll come back and-"

"Don't make me sedate you. Nurse Chapel! Go finish with that lady over there, I'll take care of the two bone-heads here!" ordered McCoy. The nurse nodded tersely, though she seemed to find something amusing.

"You really suck," Dev hissed at Jim. He held up his hand, which was now wrapped with a layer of gauze. Apparently Bones had been wrong in it being broken, though he had refused to let him get away without it being treated in some way or another.

"Hey, if I'm tortured, you are too. It's only fair."

Bones finished his investigation. He showed Devon the diagnosis the little machine had come up with.

"Extremely bruised ribs, second degree burns, sprained hand" – at this he glared at Jim as if he had given Devon the idea to sprain her hand too – "multiple abrasions and risk of internal bleeding. Not to mention pretty heavily concussed. Not to mention that your heart rate is nowhere near normal and your face is about fifteen times paler than it should be." He sighed heavily. "Now, would you like to tell me _exactly _how you did this to yourself?"

"No, I want to treat myself. And I pride myself on my tanning abilities."

"You've never been able to keep a tan, and that's not an option. It's either I treat you and you tell me or I knock you out and take care of all this." He motioned to the screen again, then began rummaging in his bag of medical tricks. Devon scrunched up her face thoughtfully.

"Fine," she muttered. Bones looked up, surprised. He had been expecting more of a fight. Dev looked at Jim.

"_Only _after I hear how Jimmy hurt himself," she clarified, smirking. Kirk shrugged and explained how the plan had worked on smuggling him into the ship. When he got to the part of having an allergic reaction to the sedative Bones used on him, Dev chortled with glee. McCoy grumbled something about staying still as he administered a few stimulants and other such drugs, then pulled out a dermal regenerator to repair the burns on Dev's arms and the cuts on her face.

"Then that weird Russian kid came on over the comm system and informed us about a lightning storm in space."

Dev's eyes grew wide. "A lightning storm?"

"Yeah."

"Oh _crud."_

For some reason, Devon had also made the connection between the USS Kelvin, the Romulans, the lightning storm in space, and everything that had just happened.

"They're back. And they destroyed Vulcan. Why?" she asked, standing up. He tried to push her back down, but she brushed him away, completely focused on her other friend.

"I don't know," said Jim. "Which is why I need to go up to the Bridge."

Apparently he had completely forgotten about hearing Dev's side of the story.

"I agree. Let's go."

"Stop!" protested Bones. "I haven't finished with you yet! Get back here, dangit!"

"Come on and treat me up in the bridge," called Dev over her shoulder**.**

"They don't _need _you up there. If you really want to gallivant around, do it when _I'm done._" Bones responded with ravishing logic.

Dev shrugged and kept going. "I'm not letting Jim have all the fun."

She hurried through the doors. Bones debated with himself for a moment, then seemed to come to a conclusion. He turned to Chapel.

"Hold things here. Keep an eye on the Vulcans, make sure they're OK. Keep those in the ICU under close attention. Call me if there's any trouble."

"Where're you going?" Chapel asked. Bones didn't answer as he made his way to the closest lift.

"Lieutenant Uhura," said Spock crisply as he paced from one side of the bridge to the other. His whole crew watched him tensely. "Have you confirmed the next intended target as earth?"

"Their trajectory suggests no other destination as possible, Captain," Uhura replied. Her eyes remained fixed upon the Vulcan's face, her expression unreadable.

"But what's the point? If the Federation is the target, why go straight for Earth?" Sulu said, voicing the question everyone had been thinking. Before an answer could be put into the air, however, the conversation was interrupted.

"How goes it?" asked Dev, bursting into the room. Jim was right behind her, a grin on his face. Spock turned, slight surprise flitting across his otherwise deadpan expression.

"Your presence is neither necessary nor requested. I order you to leave at once," he said softly.

"I'm glad you feel that way," Jim said. "Too bad I'm _technically _not under your command because I'm _technically _not part of this crew."

"Yeah, and I'm a refugee from the Ferragut," added Devon. "So I have a right to find out what the heck is going on."

At that moment, Bones came through the doors from the lift. No one paid any attention to him- all eyes were fixed upon the two insolent young people who had interrupted the oh-so-serious conversation.

"You are a stowaway, and therefore, have no business to be anywhere but the brig," Spock hissed at Jim. "And you, Doctor _Tstill_, should be contemplating what has brought you to survive something which your friends, family, and _mate _have not." His voice had taken on a harsh quality that bordered on anger. The words were a razor on tissue paper: sharp, abrupt, and to the point.

Uhura gasped, putting her hands over her mouth, but quickly regained her composure. Devon looked at her, then switched her attention back to the acting captain. Her eyes, which had previously been warm with humor, were now glittering with an emotion which couldn't be recognized, save by one person. And that one person could not see her eyes.

"I have not the foggiest notion of what you're talking about," she said coldly to the acting captain. But it was all too clear that she did. Her hands, which had been previously resting limply at her sides, were curled into tight fists. Her eyebrows were drawn together, and she was clenching and unclenching every muscle in her body, so she vibrated like a massage machine. "But I have just remembered that I have...patients to look after."

She swept past Bones and into the lift. The door closed, and the last thing Devon saw was the wide eyes of every crew member on the Bridge, staring at her with unmasked curiosity- and a few with fear.

Bones watched at his friend stormed out of the Bridge. He had arrived only a few moments after Jim and Dev had, yet obviously _miles _behind in the conversation.

"You are a stowaway," Spock had said to Jim. At least that much had been true, and not really that bad, in most respects. As long as no one found out how Jim had been smuggled onboard, nothing was wrong.

But what had Spock been referencing when he spoke to Devon?

"And you, Doctor _Tstill_, should be in mourning. Does not a human mourn for lost friends, family, and _mate_?"

Had the Vulcan said _"mate"_**?**

Jim stared at Spock. Spock stared back.

"You know," drawled Kirk, moving slowly towards the center of the bridge. Once again, all eyes were upon him. He sat down quite deliberately in the captain's chair. "There was a study done a few years ago about whether computers could handle situations that required quick thinking and command skills. Someone thought they could, because they would be logical in all respects, and logic usually wins out on everything, doesn't it, Mr. Spock?"

Spock surveyed him. "Out of the chair."

Jim didn't move. "I guess they were wrong. Computers aren't always _logical._ Seems like they have a few feelings of their own, don't they?"

That did it. "Security!" Spock said. "Escort Mr. Kirk to the brig."

Four men clad in red moved forwards. Jim held up a hand.

"Where are we bound?" he asked. Spock didn't answer him.

"Where's this bucket of bolts heading?" repeated Jim, some fire in his voice.

"Get him _out of here_," Spock said to the security guards. Jim allowed himself to be taken away.

"You know," he tossed over his shoulder. "This only proves my point."

"Crew of the Enterprise," came a cold voice over the ship's communication system, "we are currently working to repair the damages to the ship from the attack by the Narada. Our orders from Captain Pike, who is still a prisoner of the enemy, are to rendezvous with the rest of the fleet on the other side of this quadrant. We shall gather with the other remaining ships. We need everyone to continue to perform admirably. Spock out."

Jim pounded his fists on the table one and shouted a wordless cry of anger. His guards looked at him quizzically.

"THE SON OF A KLINGON! HE'S GOING TO KILL US ALL!" he yelled, rushing towards the door of his cell. Even though he was stopped pretty forcefully by the invisible barrier between him and his guards, the two red shirts jerked back as if they were expecting him to attack them.

"Calm down," one of them said. Jim stared at him, eyes wide.

"CALM DOWN? DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT THAT ANNOUNCEMENT MEANS, YOU MISBEGOTTEN KLINGON?"

The guard shook his head automatically, then caught himself.

"I don't have to answer to you."

"I don't give a _heck _what you care," whispered Jim. He had stopped his anger dead in its tracks, using the energy to make his voice low and intense. Burning right now would do no good. He needed to be cold and calm- like Spock. Just not like him, because if he was, he'd lead the whole ship to their deaths. "You know what'll happen if we rendezvous with the rest of the fleet? Do you want to know? Well?"

The other guard, who was obviously the less brighter and braver of the two, nodded slightly. Jim fastened his slightly mad gaze upon him.

"They'll destroy it. Just like they destroyed Vulcan. Except that this time it's _your _family and _your _friends and _your life_, that gets obliterated."

* * *

_EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I took my last exam yesterday (latin- UGH) and got my exam grades today. Wanna hear them? Of course you do!_

_Math: 94  
Latin: 95  
English: 97  
Science: 98  
History: 99  
Spanish: 100_

_I'm kinda mad about my math grade- It's the lowest grade I've gotten all semester 0_0. How infuriating! Anyway, I'm free for the next week, then off to study the next level of spanish for the summer. Don't worry, though. I'm going to have a lot of time to write, figure skate, and study, so I won't neglect you. Please review!_

_-Owly_

_P.S. Never mind. What you just read, folks, is courtesy of Unveiled Creativity, best beta on the earth! :) _

_P.P.S. Oh, I have a competition for ya'll! If you haven't noticed, I use a lot of idioms in my writing to describe things. If you can come up with an idiom that I don't use very often, and that I like, I'll use it in the next chapter. AND- to sweeten the deal- you can make up a character (name, rank, focus, species, etc.) and I'll use it in a following chapter. Good luck, live long, and prosper! _

_P.P.P.S. Please review! Pwetty pwetty pwetty pwetty pwease. If you do, you get a free virtual Kirk and Spock plushie toy! _


	15. Chapter 15: I Do Swear

Even as a teenager, Uhura had an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Anything she could learn, she did. And she remembered almost everything she had ever heard in a class, read that was written in a book-file, or seen in a Education Vid.

When she had first met Spock, and, admittedly, developed a small crush on him, she had studied everything she could on the topic of Vulcan. Even speaking the language, which everyone had said was impossible, she had attempted and succeeded at.

With this background, Uhura couldn't believe what she had just heard. It was impossible. The girl who she had just saved, who had captured the hearts of James Kirk and Leonard McCoy, who was strong and independent and so _living_ had been cut down by a few choice words and a name.

It was brutal name, yes, but still just a word. Nothing more than mere sound waves in the air vibrating against her eardrums.

Even so, the first time Uhura had heard Devon's last name, she had thought it was a coincidence. There had to be more than one family with that name. It could even be a human family- perhaps the descendants of the original Tstills. Devon looked human enough to fit that particular explanation.

But then Spock had repeated Devon's last name- Tstill. And with Vulcan just destroyed, it wasn't too hard to put the pieces together.

* * *

"Jim!"

James Kirk looked up from where he had been glaring at his two guards. He had done everything he could- wheedled, whined, and threatened- but the guards were either too dense or too smart to let him out.

"Over here!"

Jim looked around. Where had the voice come from? Then he saw it- Devon's pale face pressed against the air vent on the wall, which was a square of metal mesh, about two and a half feet across. His face split wide open as he grinned.

"What are you doing?" he mouthed at her so as not to alert his guards. She rolled her eyes. Ok, so it had been a stupid question.

Without bothering to answer, Devon held up a small, silver, cylindrical object, then hunched over so that all Jim could see was the top of her head. There was a hissing noise, and a wave of heat crashed through the room. She looked up after a tense minute and wiped her forehead. Another minute later, and the vent's door was lowered gently onto the floor. Seeing this, Jim got up and slowly moved towards his escape route?

"C'mon!" hissed Devon again. "Hurry up!"

He mouthed a rather longer (and ruder) version of "shut up!" to her. She smirked in response and motioned for him to move faster. He did so, and was about to climb in with her when the guard spotted him.

"HEY WHAT THE HECK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" shouted Guard-Number-One. Jim turned his head, surprised. "HE'S GETTING AWAY!"

Both of the guards fumbled for the controls to the invisible door. Jim stood for a moment, watching, unsure what to do.

The world refocused. He jumped into the vent and pulled the cover over it.

"Gimme," he muttered, prying open Dev's hands. Clenched inside of her white fists was a small laser. There were two settings- cut and weld. "Cover your eyes!"

Holding the vent door up with one hand and the laser with the other, he turned his head away from the light, switched the settings to 'weld' and pressed the 'on' button. There was blinding light, and a lot of heat. It struck Jim like a blow to the face, but he held onto the vent with all his might. He worked as quickly as he could, squinting into the light of the welder to confirm that the guards were having inexplicable trouble with his door. Most likely another trick of Devon's.

Then the small tool clicked off. Swearing rather violently, Jim inspected a tiny screen the device's side: "Mandatory shut down for cooling."

"Welding takes more energy than cutting does, stupid," Dev whispered to him. Kirk released his hold on the cover and hoped that it would stay put. It did.

"Red alert!" shouted one of the guards. Through the metal grille, Jim could see that he had managed to get into the room and was reaching to wrench the cover off of the vent.

"Go!" he hissed at Devon. She scrambled further into the duct. Jim followed, hands stretched out before him, a wordless cry of anger at his back. The guard had apparently tried to pull the vent off of the wall- and failed. Kirk could barely contain a laugh of relief. Dev's little laser had done the trick! Then his smile faded as a strange smell assailed his nostrils. Molten metal. There was a metallic creak as the vent door started to crumble under what was presumably phaser fire.

"C'mon!" Devon whispered to him. Her voice came inexplicably from above his head. "Just go straight. There are other passages, but you want the furthest one. It gets wider and then goes up."

Jim couldn't conceal a grin this time. "That is _so _what she said."

"That doesn't even make sense. And this isn't exactly a great time for your perverted mind to surface," Dev groaned. Jim didn't answer- it wasn't like she was expecting him to.

He held his hands out in front of him and hurried forward. It grew darker, but true to Devon's word, wider. The cool of the wall startled him when he came into contact with it, but there was no time to lose.

"Go up," Dev hissed again. "Spider style."

Jim dropped the laser, placed his hands on the wall and did as he was told. It wasn't a moment too soon, either. As soon as he had pulled himself up, the vent creaked and there was a loud crash. Apparently the metal cover had come off.

"HEY!" shouted someone. "Where'd he go?"

Vaguely, alarms could be heard ringing.

"We should just wait for a bit," said one of the guards, presumably the less intelligent of the two. "He'll have to come out eventually."

Jim laughed to himself. _Sure. _Apparently the other guard agreed with Jim.

"No, he could get all the way up to the Bridge in there! We need to alert the captain and follow him!" he shouted. Jim heard the sounds of someone clambering into the vent's opening. However, the maze of tunnels seemed to confuse the guard, who climbed out again just as quickly. "We won't be able to find him in there. Alert Captain Spock."

It wasn't easy climbing the ventilation shaft straight up. The walls were slippery, and if it weren't for the sticky sweat that was forming on his palms, Jim wouldn't have been able to keep going.

"How much further?" he grunted after a minute or so of solid climbing. His traction was beginning slip, and he found himself going back three or four inches for every foot he gained.

"It shouldn't be much more..." Dev said back, voice strained. With a thump, Jim heard her pull herself up onto the next level.

"I think I found the next floor," she called a few seconds later. Jim sighed with relief and managed to lever himself up another foot. With probing hands, he found the next air duct. Devon's feet hung over the side. Grunting, he levered himself into the vent...and on top of Dev.

"Get off me!" she growled, attempting to wriggle out from under his dead weight.

"I kinda like this," he complained, making no motion to roll off of her. "It's like me and Gaila, only you're prettier."

"Shut up. We have to save the world, remember?" she hissed. "That danged Vulcan's going to let them destroy Earth."

"Yeah, sweetheart. I get it." Jim leaned down and pecked her on the cheek, something he had done with other girls a million times. But this time it was different. This time, it was like being plugged into a torture device.

Jim couldn't tell if it was physical pain or mental pain. He was used to the physical kind. He had gotten beat up at home and had been in enough fights to know how to deal with it. But it also felt like it could be emotional: the deep ache he had known when his mother had married that son of a Klingon all those years ago and then had left him to be deported to that forsaken planet to fend for himself and-

"How many times do I have to tell you?," Dev gasped, interrupting his emotional litany and shoving his face away from her own with a sleeved arm. "DON'T TOUCH MY FACE!"

"I'm...sorry..." Jim whispered. Devon said nothing. He thought that perhaps he really had gone too far this time.

"James Kirk..." Her voice was soft, and not at all angry. Jim had never heard her speak like that before, well, not to him. To Bones, yes. But to him, never. "I can count on my fingers the times you've said sorry without me giving you the silent treatment first. Was it that bad?"

"It?" he asked weakly.

"The...emotional transference. Did it hurt?"

"Like a nightmare."

"I'm sorry."

"What-"

"I'll tell you later."

"Tell me now," Jim said fiercely. Devon shifted, fingers fluttering on his shoulders as she tried to push him off. The attempt seemed to be wholehearted, yet was oddly weak. This observation was not prioritized by Kirk's brain, however, as he realized something. "Tstill. That's a name I recognize. Stop keeping your effing secrets, Dev. I trust you with my life. Now you have to trust me with yours."

"I _swear, _I'll tell you why you recognize my last name," Devon whispered, voice choked. "But we don't have time. We've _got _to stop this ship. You have your own share of secrets too, you know." The last sentence was added as an afterthought.

"Fine. You owe me. Big time."

"No, it's even. I just broke you out of jail, didn't I?"

Jim thought about that for a moment and realized that Dev didn't really owe him much at all.

"I hate you."

"Love you too, Jim."

Through the darkness, Jim thought he saw a glimpse of her grin. Or perhaps it was the glint of tears.

* * *

It was dark. Dark and cool. But not cold. It was like a cool evening back on Earth, with the windows open to allow a breeze to flow through the house.

Earth. There was something to be remembered about his home planet. Something not good.

Captain Pike's eyes flew open and blinked wildly, unseeing. _Earth is going to be destroyed! _

Panic. For a moment, all he could feel was panic. Then all those years of training at the Academy and as a professor kicked in, and the fear was quelled underneath cool reason.

_Priority one: In situations of high stress, danger, or possible death, do everything in your power to keep reason as your primary mental faculty._

Pike took a few deep breaths. His heart rate slowed. His vision cleared. His hands unclenched.

_Priority two: assess your situation._

Well that was a hard one. There wasn't much to assess. He had been tortured into giving up secrets that he held near and dear to his heart. It had been information that gave him a reason to defend the Federation every day. The knowledge made him almost as proud as his ship and his crew did. And the fact that he had been tortured had not an ounce of weight in his defense. The fact was that he had caved and sang like a bird. But that wasn't the least of it: Vulcan was destroyed. That in itself was enough fodder for nightmares to keep a child's dreams as deranged as madman for a lifetime.

_Priority three: A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Look for yours. _

Pike squeezed his eyes shut again, trying to remember someone- anyone- who might be the weak link. But his mind was so foggy that nothing was making sense.

Bringing the full power of his formidable will together, Pike concentrated on his past hours aboard the Narada. He had been tortured. That was unpleasant. And it had just been Nero and his - _The girl. It was HER. That girl Kirk was holding onto at the hearing, who didn't look like she could keep a firm grip on a phaser, much less betray the whole Federation. She gave me something to put me to sleep, and here I am now. Awake. Alive. Feeling like I've been trampled by an elephant, but still _alive. _It was her...but she didn't look the same. Older. Less likely to have a one night stand with another cadet, or something. More mature. Maybe betraying the peace of the galaxy to a criminal and allowing a whole planet along with its inhabitants to be destroyed has taken its toll on her. Yes. That is the only possible explanation..._

_So it's her. She's my link. _

_Priority four: Look and listen. How will you use your link? _

Pike thought for awhile. When he finally came up with a solution, it was far from perfect. But it was still something.

* * *

McCoy was angry, but this wasn't unusual. The difference was that this time, he wasn't angry at the world. He was angry at himself.

He had retreated from the Bridge as soon as he was able. Back in sickbay, he had made sure nothing was critically wrong with the patients before locking himself in the recently vacated Chief Medical Officer office. Here he had time to think. And as soon as he had worked out for himself the implications of what Spock had said to Devon, he lost it. His mind, which was not the most orderly of places, went from unorganized to chaos.

_"And you, Doctor Tstill, should be in contemplating what has brought you to survive something which your friends, family, and mate have not."_

_Mate. MATE? She's...married? Why didn't he just say "husband?" Mate is a term generally used by Vulcans..._

_She's...mated with someone? _

_What does that even _**mean**_?_

_Friends...family...and _**_mate._ **_They did not survive. Survive what? The destruction of Vulcan? _

_Yes. That's the most likely answer. _

_Friends...She had friends on other ships. _

_Family...and that freaking _**_mate _**_thing again. Either they were with Starfleet, or they were on Vulcan. _

_Neither are very likely. _

_So which one is it? _

* * *

"Where's the Laser Welder?" hissed Devon to Jim. She was crouched next to him in the air duct between deck 7 and 8, which was conveniently located next to a lift.

"Uh...I think I dropped it," replied Jim.

"You are such a stupid guy for someone so _smart_. Or maybe you're just really ADHD," Devon growled. "Whatever it is, I'm blaming you if we're stuck here forever."

"Lemme try." He looked down through the vent and seemed to be inspecting all the passers by until he found what he was looking for. Then Jim leaned back on his hands a bit and somehow shuffled around so his feet were closer to the vent than he was. He took a breath.

BAM!

Without warning, Jim smashed his foot into the vent with all the force he could muster. It popped off from its grooves like a cork from a bottle of wine, except with considerably more volume.

"You idiot! Someone probably heard that!" Dev whisper-screeched. That is, she screeched, but did it at whisper level. A very tricky thing to do.

"I know." Jim seemed pleased with himself as he peered through the new hole he had created.

"And?" Devon raised her eyebrows. "Please tell me you have one of your famous Kirk plans."

"I do."

"Yeah? Well you'd better make it snappy, because there's a lieutenant down there waiting for us to explain."

* * *

McCoy brought his fists down hard on the desk before him, causing the computer to rattle.

_I thought she couldn't touch anybody because of an alien skin condition. Or maybe because she was a highly sensitive empath. _

_I never thought it could be because she didn't want to be attracted to Jim. Or me. _

_Does just _**touching** _us make such a huge difference? _

_That doesn't even make sense. Or does it? _

_She spent so much freaking time with us. All those times she used our couch! We kept the bad dreams away..._

_If only I _**_knew. _**_She wasn't faking those dreams. A girl can't scream like that unless she has something to scream about. _

_Were they just guilt dreams? Stress dreams? Or is there something more? _

_Whatever._

_I thought she was better than that._

_In the end it was just a guilty girl trying to stay loyal to her...mate. _

_I guess I was wrong about...about everything. How could I ever even _**entertain** _the idea of me and her? It was just bloody ridiculous. _

_She's a monster. Toying with us that way. _

_Even so...The way she looks at me at two in the morning...It couldn't be just sleepiness. Could it? _

_Maybe that's why she acted so weird all the time. She really _**was** _guilty, because she was feeling attracted to me?_

_Ha. You egocentric pig, McCoy. _

_But she pulled away from Jim. He was more forward, yes. You stayed in the background. Always there, never saying anything. Does it mean anything? _

_You moron. That doesn't mean anything._

_Does it? _

_No. _

_Yes. _

**_No. _**

* * *

Jim flashed her his trademark smirk, then jumped down from the vent. Dev stared. It was the last thing she had been expecting, to tell the truth. She didn't think Jim was _that _stupid.

"Cadet," said the lieutenant crisply. "What is your name?"

A grin somehow found its way onto Jim's face. "Leonard McCoy. Cadet McCoy, I guess."

Up in the air vent, Devon rolled her eyes (she seemed to be doing this a bit more often than usual.) _Really. Taking McCoy's name. So juvenile. _

"Is there a reason you are defacing this ship, Cadet McCoy?" pressed the Lieutenant.

Jim huffed, pretending to be a little out of breath.

"Well sir," he said. "The CEO down in engineering wanted me to make sure no antimatter was leaking from the reactor- you know, the blast jangled us around down there- and so me and Devon had to crawl through heaven knows how many air ducts to make sure there wasn't a rip."

"Then how did you get up here all the way from Engineering?"

"I honestly don't know. It's dark in there, sir," Jim offered by way of explanation. The officer didn't seem convinced. He squinted at the young man before him.

"Do I know you?"

"I don't know. Do you?"

Jim adopted his look of boyish innocence. He usually used this Kirk-patented expression on cute girls, but hey, it was worth a shot.

"If I hear of any more disturbances, I'll haul your butt down in the brig before you can say 'phaser,'" the lieutenant said, eyes still narrowed.

"Yes sir!"

"M'name's Korlu. Lieutenant Eric Korlu. I'm who you should watch out for." He glared at Jim and then at the passers by who were staring. Eyes were quickly averted from the scene.

"Yes sir, Lieutenant Korlu!" Jim agreed again readily, snapping to attention.

"Good." The man strode away. Kirk looked up at Dev. She had her eyes screwed up tightly, one hand pressed against her forehead. Through her half opened mouth came short, panting breaths. She didn't look good.

"You feeling sick?" he asked.

Her eyes popped open.

"Bad headache." She dropped down unsteadily from the vent, wincing. "That was the most unconvincing lie I've ever heard. Of all the ruses and plots you could have used, you went for engineering? It's complete idiocy!"

Jim grinned. Her headache apparently did nothing to the lobe of her brain that allowed her to give him a good tongue lashing.

"How did you know it would work?" Dev continued.

"The guy's dad is on the Board of Trustees at the Academy," explained Jim, walking to the lift. "He always gets the best assignments, but he's never been very intelligent."

The doors slid open. Dev nodded slowly. "Well I guess this proves that I'll have to go with your ideas, _partner_. Ready to stop this ship?"

Kirk voiced an enthusiastic agreement, and they slapped high fives. They stepped into the lift. "Bridge," said Devon. The doors closed and the lift started to ascend.

"So what exactly is the plan?" Dev asked as the floors whirred past. Jim stared at her.

"I thought that this was _your _plan!"

"You said you had a Kirk Plan!"

The lift began to slow down. Suddenly, everything felt cold and clammy. Doubts began to worm their way into Jim and Devon's heads, suggesting that this foolhardy idea may not be the best course of action...

"Well?"

Kirk frowned. "Just follow my lead."

"But-"

The doors slid open, revealing five men, all garbed in the red of the security sector. Dev closed her protesting mouth and glared down the barrels of the phasers. Her glower was so ferocious that two of the men took steps back.

"Both of ya'll," said one with an obvious Southern drawl which reminded Dev painfully of a certain doctor who was probably stewing down in sickbay. "Yer goin' back to the Brig."

"Wait!" Jim interjected as the guards moved forward to take them back down the lift. "Spock!"

The acting captain turned nonchalantly in his chair, fingers steepled. Every eye in the Bridge was fixed upon the two opposing forces. A great showdown seemed to be in the making.

"Gentleman, please escort Misters Kirk and Tstill to the brig," Spock said softly. Devon, still not quite used to her last name being thrown around as such, objected boisterously, all former plans of following Jim's lead thrown out the window.

"Who do you think you are, to condemn a whole planet to death?" she cried heatedly. "I don't know about you, but every member of your crew has family back on Earth. And we don't like you so lightly giving up any hope we have!"

Her expression was award winning. Her eyebrows were drawn together, eyes huge, and lip slightly trembling, as if she were on the verge of a hysterical break down.

"I do not fully comprehend your statements," Spock replied. "For you say 'we' as if you are one of them."

Once again, Devon froze. All emotion drained from her face. She looked from Spock to Jim, who was looking curiously at her, and glanced quickly at Uhura, who was also staring.

"If it's time to spill secrets, _captain_," she said, her use of the word not in any way respectful. "I know a few myself that may prove _interesting_ should they be made general knowledge." She glanced again at Uhura meaningfully before refocusing on the Vulcan.

And then she parted her lips in a grin, though no humor was evident on her face. Why? Because she knew that she had Spock there. Logically, he would have no objection to her voicing feelings for the communications Lieutenant. However, if he was completely ruled by logic, he would not harbor emotions toward her in the first place.

Jim, a little annoyed by Devon's jump of the gun (almost literally), took advantage of Spock's dilemma to voice his own opinion.

"Spock, we can't rendezvous. There's not enough _time._ Earth'll be destroyed before we get anywhere!"

"I am following Captain Pike's last orders. We must reunite with the rest of the fleet in order to balance the terms of the next engagement," argued the Vulcan, choosing to ignore Devon's own comment. Kirk snorted.

"There won't be a next engagement!" he replied patronizingly. "Look, I have this wacky theory. Those Romulans have technology we have never dreamed of. They spoke to you as if they had met you, only they talked about what would be a past event as if it were the future. What I know of the Kelvin's demise is that they appeared from a black hole 25 years ago. The _logical_ conclusion, however crazy, is that they're from the future. If they're future men, then our course of action should be unpredictability!"

Devon stared at her friend blearily. So did the rest of the Bridge. Unbeknownst to either of the twosome, the same theory had been proposed and taken as fact by none other than Spock himself. The acting captain, upon hearing this from whom he assumed was no more than a rebellious, ordinary young man, raised his eyebrows in a Vulcan form of extreme surprise.

"Your conclusion is logical. However, their presence here has disrupted the time continuum. We are no longer experiencing events as they occurred for the Romulans. We are, in simple terms, in a parallel universe to the one they belong in," Spock countered.

"Can't you see that Earth is going to be vaporized by the time we arrive in the Laurentian system?" Jim said.

"There is no proof of that-" Spock tried to reply. Jim just kept talking over him, both answering the acting captain's comments and starting his own argument.

"Dang well there is! Or did you not see Vulcan-"

"-be that as it may, you are not privy to our enemy's mind and plans-"

"-I'm not? I suppose your superior Vulcan intellect told you that-"

"-your human ideals and emotions are complicating an already complicated situation-"

"-your captaincy is destroying any hope we have of surviving!"

"Get these two off the Bridge immediately!" Spock called clearly over Jim's continuing argument.

The guards moved forward. So did Jim and Devon. Suddenly both of them leapt into action. Jim smashed his fist into the jaw of the guard furthest to his right, then kneed him the groin. Dev opted for a less orthodox approach. She let loose a flying kick into the man's stomach, then finished with a strange hold on his neck which left him unconscious on the ground. However, despite all their training, the fight did not last much longer. Jim did dispatch another guard, but Devon incapacitated before he could come to her aid. When he saw her go down by the butt end of a phaser to her head, he took out another man. Spock, who had been watching with mounting frustration, finally took things into his own hands quite literally. He came up quietly behind Jim and employed the famous Vulcan nerve pinch. Jim stood no chance.

"Get these two _off this ship!" _ordered the captain, his voice tinged with what might have bordered on anger.

A few minutes later, Devon and Jim, both unconscious, were unceremoniously dumped into separate escape pods and jettisoned onto a passing planet called Delta Vega.

* * *

McCoy leaned back in his chair. He was still confused about what he had heard from Spock, but had come to a conclusion, of sorts. What had those old fairy tales he had heard when he was a child been about? Mostly men fighting to win a girl's heart, or to comfort her in some other nausea inducing way. He wasn't so soft that he would back down at the first hurdle!

Without knowing it, Bones sat up straighter in his seat.

_Yes. That's it. I'll stay with her until she realizes that there's no time to mourn whatever dead man had her heart. I'll always be there, waiting. She'll see. _

A grin spread across McCoy's face. Now, where was that girl?

"Computer, find Doctor Devon Tstill," he said to the computer on his desk. There was a moment of whirring. A map appeared on screen. It showed deck 9, the deck where all escape pods and shuttlecraft were stored. A circle was drawn around an escape pod's mouth. The name written under it was "Devon Tstill."

"Doctor Tstill is on deck 9, sector 3, pod 2."

Bones stared at the screen, then leaped from his chair.

_What in the name of all sanity has she done now?_

_

* * *

_

**GINORMOUS "thank you"s to everyone who reviewed! **

**Even BIGGER thanks to Fickle'Fan'Girl and Koryu Elric for entering the contest! Koryu already got her prize- virtual Kirk and Spock plushies- for going overtime when I needed help. :) Fickle'Fan'Girl, I'll send your virtual plushies when I have a chance. :) **

**Muchas gracias to Ttoboggi for reviewing, as well as Galactic Cannibilism. **

**Now, why is this chapter so late, you may ask? Two reasons: 1. It was hard to write. I mean, this chapter was probably not my best, but I was trying to encompass a few week's worth of emotional/plot planning in the whole thing so every small twist will add up in the end. 2. My beta disappeared...again. This time she didn't even respond to the PM. Ah well...I think she's busy. Because of that, ladies and gents, this last chapter you just read was completely unbeta-ed. You can tell, can't you? I thought so. :) **

**Anyway, I have to say that I can't pick a winner for the idiom contest...so FIckle'Fan'Girl and Kroyu Elric both get to make up characters, only they won't have major parts to play. Just a few lines here and there. :) **

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN STAR TREK. If I did, I wouldn't write stories...I'd write screenplays! (Yes, I differentiate between the two.)**

**Ok, best thing EVER. William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy both have Twitter accounts. They Tweet back and forth to each other, and Leonard Nimoy has the best chat speak thing EVER: LLAP. :) Guess what it means. XD I thought you guys should know that. **

**So, Thanks for reading! Next chapter up as soon as I can figure out how to write it. LLAP everybody! **

**-Owly **


	16. Chapter 16: I'll Freaking Kill Him

**_Can I apologize? I haven't updated in forever! Well, to be honest, I'm not sure yet if I want to update this or not. I'm not sure if this is the direction I want to take the story. Whatever. If I have issues, I can bring in some zombies, and BAM, problem solved._**

**_On a more serious note, I'm SO sorry for not updating. I know. I'm a bad person. But school has started, I was sick, my mom almost had a heart attack and was uber sick, met a rel-life Jim Kirk, fell for said Jim Kirk, and I was away at camp. Sorry to everyone I promised another chapter to, and welcome to all my new readers! _**

* * *

Consciousness arrived all too soon. Jim groaned, not bothering to open his eyes. His head hurt, his hand hurt (_Bones was supposed to fix that!) _and there was dull ache in his left knee. Sleep beckoned flirtatiously at the edge of his consciousness, more enticing than Gaila had ever been.

But of course, reality didn't feel like catering to his wishes. Even though it was strangely silent- there was no one yelling for a hypospray or the rushing of booted feet that Jim associated with sickbay, which was where he knew he was lying- there was constant computer alert was droning on above him. And his head was so sore that even this small noise grated against his eardrums like a sonic boom.

_That can't be good. If this is sickbay, something must be wrong. It's never this quiet. _

Hoping to see an irate McCoy leaning over him with a curse word on his lips and a hypospray in his hands, Jim opened his eyes. Again, his wish wasn't granted. The sight before him was obviously nowhere close to an angry doctor. In fact, Jim had a funny feeling that he was nowhere close to the Enterprise.

Directly in front of him was a viewpanel. Through it was a cold blue sky, which was sprinkling flakes of snow onto his window.

"Where am I?" he asked aloud, unwinding the bandages from his hurt hand.

"Current location: Delta Vega. Classification: M. Identified as highly dangerous," the navigation chirped. "There is a Starbase 12 kilometers to the south. Please stay within your pod until you have been retrieved."

Jim groaned and cursed as he realized what must have happened.

_That Klingon-kissing Vulcan must've marooned me here for "mutiny." I'm gonna kill him._

Without missing another beat, he grasped the handles of the pod's door and turned. The hatch popped open. Instantly, the temperature inside the pod dropped by a good ten degrees. Cold air smacked Jim in the face like a hard right hook. Grunting and cursing, he clambered out of the pod and looked around. Or, more correctly, _up._

Ice rose up around the pod like the walls of a medieval castle, only brutally sharp and numbingly cold. _Not a castle_, Jim rescinded, _but an inverted Tower of London. _

More flurries of snow drifted down from above. Each one was soft as a butterfly's touch, yet ten times colder than any Terran snow could be. Shivering, Jim retreated back into his pod.

"Computer, do a scan of all land within 15 kilometers of our present position. Any other foreign structures?"

"Another escape pod, number 266 from the USS Enterprise has been located point two five kilometers to the southwest. 12 kilometers to the south is Starbase outpost 117."

"Delightful. Another escape pod. Must be Dev." He squinted at the dashboard of buttons before him and jabbed the one labeled _comm_. "Jim Kirk to Devon."

A connection was immediate.

"Dev?" he said, tapping a staccato rhythm on an armrest nervously. "You still there?"

There was no reply.

_Either she's left for the starbase already or hasn't woken up yet._

"Devon!"

This time, a moan rattled through the speakers.

"Jim...gotta...headache." Her words were slurred together like the time they had "confiscated" a few bottles of Romulan ale from Bones. The next day, even hangover hypos hadn't done anything for the headache and nausea.

"Geez, Dev, where'd you find booze in a place like this?" Jim said cautiously.

"Stuff it..." came the hazy reply. "Feel like crud."

Jim supposed that this didn't mean that he should feel like crud, but that she felt like crud.

"Keep a lid on the whining. What the heck's wrong with you anyway?"

The response was nothing more than unintelligible mumbling.

"Dev?"

More mumbling. Like she couldn't get her tongue around the words.

"Hey, stay put, ok? I guess I'll have to drag your sorry backside through this freak of a storm and to the starbase. You owe me so freaking much."

"Starbase?" Devon repeated thickly. Jim clenched his fists, patience wearing thin.

"Yeah, starbase. They'll take care of you there."

"Buuuuhhhh...nnsssss," she replied.

"Buns?" _That's a weird word to say when you're trapped on a freaking ice castle._ "What the-"

"Boh...ns."

"Oh. Bones? Bones is on the Enterprise, Dev," Jim said, impatience draining away, and anxiety taking its place. "We're on effing Delta Vega. You musta hit your head hard."

"Ess...eye...ess," came the dazed reply.

"S.I.S? Don't you mean S.O.S.?"

No answer.

"Whatever. Hang on, ok? I'll get you fixed up..." Jim swallowed. "Don't fall asleep on me, sweetheart."

There was no response. He closed communications, swearing. "Computer, where's pod number 266 again?"

"Directly to the southwest," came the prompt reply. Jim nodded and looked around. There wasn't much in the pod besides a few safety straps he had not used on the trip down (which probably had something to do with the decidedly large lump on the back of his head.) Finally, he caught sight of a survival pack that was hidden in a small storage space beneath the seat. When this was firmly in his hand, he scrambled out of the pod and looked at the wall of ice before him.

_Spock had better make sure those pointy ears of his are protected when I get off this wasteland, _Jim thought murderously as he scanned the icy walls for possible handholds. _Otherwise I'm going to round 'em off so he can pass for human. _

The ice was cold and sharp as razor blades. By the time he had levered himself onto the frozen tundra of Delta Vega, Jim's hands were numb and bleeding. After a quick check in the survival pack, he came up with a jacket, gloves, a few food packets, a compacted tent, a small tricorder, a variety of standard hyposprays and a few old fashioned bandages.

Once he had doctored himself up as well as he could, Jim donned the gloves and the jacket and turned its heater on. As its warmth spread slowly across his torso, Jim got his bearings. A quick scan with the tricorder confirmed the computer's own analysis- there was a lifeform within .25 kilometers to the southwest.

Jim frowned and shook the machine. The statistics onscreen weren't normal. Devon's molecular and anatomical structure appeared...wrong. It wasn't anything major, like the difference between a fish and a cat or anything, but it was there. He shook this off as a glitch and a general lack of physiology on his part. After all, the machine wasn't exactly the most up-to-date technology. And he wasn't exactly a doctor.

The wind screamed, threatening to knock Jim off his feet, and succeeding in knocking any thoughts about the tricorder readings out of his head. He shouldered the pack and marched off in the general direction of his friend.

"Captain Spock to Doctor McCoy."

McCoy was still staring at the computer. He had just watched his best friend and his maybe-more-than-a-friend be blasted into the cold unknown of space. It was almost certain death for both of them. Bones mentally though back to the medical scans he'd taken of Jim and Devon. Jim's hand had been fractured in three places, the vaccine was still wreaking havoc with his system, and his ribs were severely bruised. Devon was in pretty bad shape too, but the worst thing was the concussion. The computer had warned him immediately that she was at risk of second impact syndrome. If anyone hit her on the head again, she'd-

The comm system whirred again.

"Captain Spock to Doctor McCoy."

Bones jabbed the receive button

"Yes?" he snapped.

"I would like to speak to you personally," replied Spock, unfazed.

McCoy frowned. A sudden thought had occurred to him. "I suppose you were the one who threw Jim and Devon off the ship."

It wasn't a question. It was a statement, and not entirely respectful enough to be said to the acting captain of a vessel. But Spock brushed off the rude words without question. After all, humans _were_ a highly emotional race.

"Not personally. We shall discuss this further in private."

Bones grumbled something that sounded vaguely like an affirmative and pressed the button to end the conversation. Tucking a communicator into his belt, he walked out through the office's doors and into a lift.

The inside of the lift was cool. A steady stream of cold air blew down from the ceiling and the soft mechanical noise of passing decks cleared his mind. He breathed deeply and scowled. Recycled air was high on his "hate" list. Even if it was clean and sterile, you couldn't pass up anything for a breath of air off of the ocean, or the musty smell of a horse. Or the sweet smell of Devon's shampoo.

Bones shook his head and scowled fiercely. _Dang girl's got my head tied in knots. Not everything's about a girl, McCoy. Think about it. Jim's with her. He'll take care of her. Probably._

_Aw, _**_heck_**_._

_Jim's not here to keep that Vulcan from destroying the ship._

_We're all dead._

"Personal log, supplemental. I am beginning to record my testimonial for Starfleet court martial...assuming that there's gonna be a Starfleet when we're done with this."

Jim tripped over another pile of snow. The wind had picked up, and the freezing cold was worming its way into his jacket. Carried along with the wind were huge snowflakes that blurred the view before him as effectively as ten inches of water, making it hard to walk, talk, and navigate at the same time.

"Acting captain _Spock- _who's only self expression is limited to his left dang eyebrow- has marooned me here for mutiny, in what I believe is a serious violation of Starfleet regulation code 49.09 on the treatment of security prisoners aboard a Starship."

The wind howled louder. Through its roar, Jim heard the steady beeping of his tricorder grow louder and faster. He breathed a sigh of relief. Devon must be close. Turning the recording function of the machine off, he looked around. Seeing his own hand in front of his face was a challenge in this weather, much less a hole in the ground that was probably covered with snow already.

The tricorder's beep was now a steady droning sound, indicating that he was almost on top of the life form.

"Where the heck is-" Jim started to say, taking a step forward on top of another snow drift. The snow collapsed beneath him. What he had been about to say was lost in a wordless cry of surprise as gravity took hold of the rest of his body. For a moment, he was twisting in midair. Then-

BAM!

Jim lay, spread eagled on top of a hard, black escape pod. Stars danced in front of his eyes. There was only enough air in his lungs for one sound.

"Ow..."

When he reached the Bridge, the first thing McCoy saw was normalcy. Everyone was working like nothing had happened. Spock was sitting in the captain's chair, looking smug as all get out. _If a Vulcan can look smug._

"You wanted to see me?" Bones said, coming up behind the captain. Spock turned and offered the doctor a small twinge at the corners of his lips.

"Certainly. Walk with me."

He stood and stepped towards the group of consoles that were devoted to communication. Bones followed and was surprised to see the Vulcan linger next to the young female lieutenant who manned communications. She was dark, with a long head of hair. Admittedly, the girl was a beauty. But of course, Bones hadn't known that a Vulcan could appreciate...femininity.

Spock turned from the girl and continued past the rest of the officers, glancing at each one in turn.

"It has been brought to my attention that you are a close personal friend of James Kirk and Devon Tstill," he said. Bones flushed a little.

"Yes," he replied, hoping that this conversation would not extend to how Jim had gotten on board.

"Perhaps you would like to know that they were marooned on planet Delta Vega for mutiny."

"I had nothing to do with it," McCoy responded a little too quickly.

"I am not suggesting that you did."

Bones stopped walking and looked at Spock."Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"I welcome it."

"Oh, do you?" snorted the doctor. "Well then..."

He took a breath and clasped his hands behind his back. It appeared outwardly that he was calm, but as Devon or Jim could tell you in heartbeat, a calm Bones was infinitely more dangerous than an angry Bones.

"Are you outta your Vulcan mind?" he said to Spock."Sending those two away like that? You know, back home, we've gotta saying. If you're gonna ride in the Kentucky derby, ya' don't leave your prize stallion in the stables."

"What a curious metaphor," Spock replied. "As a stallion must first be broken _before_ it can reach its potential."

McCoy could only stare at the Vulcan. "I bet sure as all heck that you've made the _logical_ decision. But the right one? James Kirk doesn't know how to lose. And we need someone like that to survive the next six hours."

Spock raised an eyebrow. "I intend to assist in the effort to re-establish communication with Starfleet and follow the course that I as acting captain deem most likely to yield positive results. However, if crew morale would be better served with me roaming the halls weeping, I'll gladly defer to your medical expertise."

"Well, since you see to be doing everything you possibly can to assist Starfleet, I'll let you know something," Bones responded sarcastically, growing ever quieter. "You could have just sent one of our finest medical officers to her death. She's a high candidate for second impact syndrome, and if she were to sustain another blow to the head-"

"Whatever harm may be done to her has been self inflicted. Nevertheless, you have my condolences. But they were endangering the safety of this vessel and its crew. The needs of the many must be taken into account before the needs of the few or the one. Dismissed."

He inclined his head slightly and walked off to an older Vulcan who had just come through the door. Bones rolled his eyes, anger visible on every plane of his face.

"Dang green-blooded hobgoblin."

Captain Pike was being neglected. Under any other circumstances, he wouldn't have minded a bit. But now that he had a plan, it was the last thing he wanted.

The plan was simple. From what he could remember, the girl was vaguely descended from some alien species. She was, maybe, one quarter alien, three quarters human. And the quarter of her that was alien was a touch empath. Nothing very sophisticated, like Betazoid or Vulcan abilities, and completely uncontrolled. Apparently one touch could overload her mind if she wasn't careful.

Of course, that wasn't common knowledge. He had been among the few to know that the girl was part alien. For some reason, the Academy had kept it quiet. This had puzzled the few who knew, because humans were not the most intelligent, the strongest, or the most respected beings in the galaxy. Being alien was actually a good thing, usually. The Academy always had quotas to fill.

Because of her telepathic powers and lack of control, Pike was surprised that the girl had kept such close contact with Kirk. Being a girl and being a friend of Kirk's meant trouble. Even if he was smart as all get out, there was a certain reputation about him as a player. There had been stories circulated around the faculty...

Pike blinked. Where had that train of thought been going? Whatever medicine they'd shot into his bloodstream was ruining his ability to focus.

_I'm slipping._

It was an awful thought. Resolving to do better, he ran the plan through in his head again.

The girl would come back. He would touch her arm and she'd be overloaded with emotions- at his mercy. It shouldn't prove too difficult. From what he had seen at the hearing, Pike knew she had the will of a decrepit old man who _wanted _to die.

It's odd how such an intelligent and wise man can be so wrong.

Jim shook pins and needles from his limbs. The goose egg on the back of his head was throbbing and had seemed to grow in the span of a few seconds from the size of an egg to a small meteor.

"DEV!" he shouted over the roar of the wind, peering into the pod. He couldn't see anything, not even any movement. He fumbled on the side of the pod for an emergency release trigger. After a minute of scrambling, he found it. The door popped open.

"DEV!" he yelled again. No response. He hoisted himself over the hatch, and opened it. The interior of the pod was dark. Through the gloom, Jim could vaguely make out someone. He leaned closer, eyes adjusting themselves to the lack of light. Finally the darkness became penetrable, revealing a shadowy figure. "Devon?"

She was lying in the fetal position, with legs drawn in close against the chill that wormed its way into the enclosed space. Even though a pile snow fell on top of her bare legs (which, Jim's ADHD half noticed, were probably her most attractive feature) she didn't move.

Jim shook her shoulder tentatively. Still no response.

Hands numb with cold and shaking from a certain chilling dread pooling in his stomach, Kirk fumbled in the jacket pocket for the tricorder. A quick scan showed that her heart rate and blood pressure were dangerously low. The oxygen in her blood was almost nonexistent. Peering closer, it appeared as if she weren't even breathing.

In short, she looked dead.

"That effing Vulcan. I'm going to _kill _him."

* * *

**So, what'dja think? I don't like this chapter. I don't know why. You tell me what you think? Wonderful? Good? Bad? Terrible? I think I'd put it somewhere between good and bad. Or maybe bad and terrible.**

**On a side note, have any of you seen the movie Inception? In one word, it blew my mind. I haven't stopped listening to the soundtrack. **

**So, please review and tell me you don't hate me for keeping you hanging. I'm a bad person :( **

**-Owly**


	17. Chapter 17: A Spy

Jim wedged himself into the pod as well as he could and placed a hand over Devon's heart. Nothing.

_That's ok. It's ok. There's just so much cloth over her heart that I can't feel the beat. Try her neck. There's always a pulse there. _

He wedged two fingers underneath Devon's jaw bone...

_Pain. _

It buzzed up his arm and jolted his mind, erasing thoughts of anything else. Jim's vision blurred as he shook, completely paralyzed. He tried to pull his hand away from Devon's neck, but couldn't. It was as if they were held together by electricity.

Then, as suddenly as it had come, the pain stopped. But it was not the end to the strange occurrence. Pictures filled the void that the pain had once occupied, swirling around his mind in a high definition movie. It was a strange sensation. Jim could still see Devon lying beneath him and could feel the biting cold snow raining down on them both, but at the same time he was seeing something entirely different.

The first image he saw was so bizarre that Jim took a few moments to recognize it (despite his narcissistic obsession with preening in front of a mirror).

It was the shipyard where he had first boarded that shuttle two years ago to be taken to the Academy. But the view was from the wrong perspective. Instead of watching the shuttle draw closer, it was as if the shuttle were watching _him _draw closer.

Jim watched himself park his bike and toss the keys to a passing workman.

"Nice ride, for a farm boy," said a voice, the image of himself growing larger as if the viewer movedcloser to the bike. Comprehension dawned on Jim's mind- he was watching from Devon's perspective!

The picture froze and was replaced by another. This one was recognizable- it was Bones, being lead out of the bathroom by an officer. Suddenly, along with the picture in his mind, Jim felt a tidal wave of emotions wash over him. The emotions were so strong that Jim wasn't even able to classify some of them. The effect was like being splashed in the face with a bucket of ice water, slapped silly, then branded with a hot poker. Strangely, however, the emotions came in pairs. Fear and anger were closely coupled together, as were affection and regret. There was happiness there, but paired with something purple that Jim didn't quite recognize.

Again, the picture was whisked away. The emotions evaporated, and Jim breathed a sigh of relief.

He had relaxed too soon.

_"Nyah nyah nyah nyah, lookie at that weirdo! Devon! Are you human, huh? Or do you gots green blood?"_

A ring of human children, maybe eleven or twelve years old, danced in Jim's line of sight, laughing their heads off, a wicked gleam in their eyes.

_"Lookit guys! D'you think she'd bleed if we stuck her?"_

_"I bet she won't!"_

_"I bet she will, but her blood'll be black!" _

_"Even _you_ should know that my blood wouldn't be black, idiot. Only some insectoid aliens have black blood!"_

It was Devon's voice that had spoken. Childish and squeaky, but still Devon.

_"But you're not a person!"_

_"Shut up! I am too!"_

_"Who's gonna make us stop? Huh? Who's gonna make us?" _

_"I will!" _

Someone else came into view. He was a little older than everyone else, maybe thirteen or fourteen, and had the countenance and features of a purebred Vulcan.

_"You're no better than she is, you alien!" _

_"Yeah, you're a piece of dirt!" _

The older boy laughed, and the sound chilled Jim to the very bones. A Vulcan? Laughing?

_"Where I come from," _the boy said. _"_**_You _**_are the piece of dirt. Now, go away, or else I'll do something we'll all regret." _

_"I'm not scared of you!" _chanted the ringleader.

_"Yeah, we're not scared of you!" _chorused the other children.

_"You should be," _the boy sneered, then jumped at them.

There were seven tormenters in the ring. Four of them ran immediately, another three tried to fend of their attacker. It was hard to see what was happening, but from what Jim could see, he dispatched them with a cold, violent efficiency. The three attackers were dispatched within moments. Yet those moments had been enough. The ringleader had jumped at Devon and stabbed at her with his knife almost in the same instant the Vulcan boy had jumped at the others. Dev raised her arm in protection. The blade caught her upper arm, cutting a long and messy gash in her flesh.

Red blood dripped from the wound, and the world tilted as she screamed and fell to the ground. The last image was that of the Vulcan, viscously attacking the boy with the knife.

_Pain. Fear. Anger. Hate. Sadness. _

Jim jerked voluntarily, and his hand sprang from from Devon's neck.

He opened his eyes, which he realized he had squeezed shut. As he did so, something strange caught his eye. Devon's hair had become mussed, revealing the tip of her ear.

Brushing the soft strands off the side of her face with a hand protected by his glove, Jim stared numbly at his friend's ear.

It was pointed just as finely as Spock's own.

* * *

The crew of the Enterprise was regrouping. It would be a few hours until the next engagement with any other starships, and they were preparing accordingly.

All the command crew were organizing the regroup effort. There were questions being asked, a lot of hurrying between stations, and even more shouting- only proving to the older, more experienced officers that these ensigns had no purpose up here in space.

Any person trained in medicine was working overtime in sickbay, which was still receiving injured persons. A ship-wide order had gone out calling anyone who had sustained any harm at all to be treated now that the worst of the attack was over. Everyone had to be in peak condition for the fight ahead.

The engineering personnel were doing their best to patch up the holes in the antimatter-matter reaction core and the warp drive. Right about now, it was all the Enterprise could do to reach warp 1. This effort was delayed a little bit, as the chief engineer and most of his senior engineering officers had been killed or injured in the attack. The highest ranking engineering officials were a few lieutenants who didn't really know diddlysquat about anything and were doing all they could just to save their crews from radiation burns.

It was a bad situation. Tension levels were high and there had been more than one nervous breakdown.

However, no one felt this more than the Vulcans. Their logical resolve was being tested more harshly than any scenario their school teachers could come up with. Spock had sanctioned a quiet room in one of the least unaffected parts of the ship for meditation and had gathered the remaining Vulcans in that one area. He stayed and meditated with them for a few minutes, then left, apparently called away by some duties as the acting captain of the vessel.

The truth, however, was that Spock had found himself unable to to meditate. He didn't know why, but the serenity that had always been there when he had needed it had fled in the wake of his turmoiled emotions.

A mental shudder ripped through his mind.

_Emotions. _Nature's little trick on the sanity of a Vulcan.

There must be something seriously wrong with him. The death of his mother was upsetting him. It was not as if his mother had not lived a full and good life. She had loved his father, with her weak human emotions. Her death was untimely, yes, and not for a purpose. Every death in the past few hours was a complete waste. A disturbingly negligent loss of life.

But it shouldn't be enough to shake his resolve.

Some voice in the back of his mind reminded him that he wasn't 100% Vulcan. He was half and half. Vulcan and human. There was a part of him that didn't always concede to logic and serenity. A part that had a right to grieve for his mother and every life that had been lost.

Spock gritted his teeth. He could not. The ship was depending on him to remain rational. And he would not be if he gave into his emotions.

For some reason, Spock had a sudden craving for Nyota Uhura's company.

_I may...spend some time up on the bridge. _

He made his way to the nearest lift and ordered it to take him to the Bridge, all the while trying to rationalize his irrational wants. Finally, however, he gave up, thinking that there was no way to logic past his emotions. It was at this point, however, that his answer jumped out at him:

_There is no logic in humanity. _

Was illogic logic?

Ah. A puzzle for another time.

* * *

McCoy leaned over an ensign that was stretched out on a bio-bed. Glancing at the scan results that appeared over the young woman's bed, Bones learned his name and age:

Iris Stirling.

Upon further inspection, the results of the scan turned out to be depressing. Though there was no topical damage, but she was suffering from severe internal bleeding. An operation was going to be necessary.

"I'm almost positive nothing's wrong, Doc," she was saying, gesticulating from her prostrate position on the bed. "I just got hit in the stomach with a few tools down in engineering and wanted to make sure nothing was seriously wrong. But I don't think there is."

Bones glanced critically down at the kid who seemed to manage _lying down _with attitude.

"In fact," McCoy replied, annoyed. "You happen to be bleeding from several lacerations in your large intestines. We're going to have to operate."

"But doc-"

"And don't 'doc' me or else what I'm about to do to you's gonna hurt a _lot worse than it does now!" _he snapped, seriously tired of her "tough girl" act.

Iris shut her mouth and pouted. The expression was seductive, and Bones suddenly thought about how Jim would react to such a girl. She certainly was a beauty. He smirked, but felt the expression slide off of his face faster than alcohol from a bottle in front of James Kirk.

Jim and Devon- especially Devon- had resurfaced in his thoughts again. Where were they? What were they doing? Were they still alive?

_Second impact syndrome. __One more blow to the head and I'll never see her again. _

Second impact syndrome- it was a pretty rare condition, especially today when concussions and other such injuries could be treated within minutes. But of course, Devon being Devon, she hadn't taken the hypos when she should have.

If she had, she'd be ok. But she didn't. And so, her concussion was probably going to turn into SIS. Of course, SIS was triggered by a secondary blow to the head that caused the brain to swell. But knowing Dev and Jim...well, they were lucky to stay bruise free for more than a day at a time.

(A/N: Just checking to see if you're awake- if you read this, please incorporate the sentence "Figure skating pwns hockey" into your review!)

* * *

Jim grabbed the survival pack out of Devon's pod. He dug the jacket out of it and pulled it over Devon's arms, zipping it up and turning the heater on. The gloves were a little trickier, but he managed to wrangle them onto her hands all the same. The rest of the equipment was surplus to his own, so he left it.

_Weird visions. Hallucinations. Going crazy under the pressure. _

_My best friend won't wake up. _

Whatever he had just seen was not normal. They had been memories, or something, from Devon's point of view. Every sensation had been so vivid and real, and the emotions he had felt...They were beyond words. It was all too fantastic to be real.

Could they? Was his imagination that good?

_No. Completely impossible. Remember all the other times you've touched Devon's skin._

Like static electricity. Or being hit by lightning, more like.

No time to worry about that now. They had to get to the Starbase. Devon needed medical attention, and pretty freaking soon.

Taking time to be silently thankful that his friend was relatively short and thin, Jim swung his friend gently over his back like he was giving her a piggy back ride. He looked up at the sky. The ice here was just like his own ice cave, though perhaps a foot or so shorter. Climbing would be nigh impossible with Dev on his back. There had to be some rope or something in the survival pack.

There wasn't. There was, however, a small chisel. _Great. I can chisel out some steps and walk out. Just give me, oh I dunno, ten years. _

Suddenly he had another idea. It was a long shot...but, there wasn't any other choice, was there?

* * *

Bones walked out of the operating room, rubbing his hands with sanitizer vigorously. The bleeding had been relatively easy to take care of, just an "internaderma" regenerator and a little blood substitute and it was all fixed up.

On a whim, Bones made his way back to his office and pulled all medical records of Devon's on the computer. Surprisingly, the only things that came up were records of her being treated in Academy's hospital. No scans. Except for what he had taken a few hours previously. Sighing, he pulled up his own scans and took a look. There was slight swelling in the brain, bruises, cuts, and a broken wrist. Nothing that was out of the ordinary. He was about to close the display when a rotating molecule in the corner of the screen caught his eye. Strange. He'd never noticed that before. It must be a new program installed on the Enterprise.

He tapped it once. The molecule enlarged, filling the screen, and was joined by more molecules. _Interesting. _

It was a breakdown of the elements in Devon's body.

Oxygen: 65%

Carbon: 14%

Hydrogen: 9%

And on and on, noting all the major elements within the human body, until he got to the following:

Copper: 4%

He frowned. That was a lot of copper. Way too much. That was enough concentration to make someone very sick, or worse.

Funny. If she had metal poisoning, then the percentage wouldn't show up on the screen, it would show up on her medical chart. Which meant that she hadn't ingested a lot of ancient coins or something,

_Strange. Ha, not just strange. Suspicious._ Perhaps that nagging thought in the back of his mind- that Devon wasn't 100% human and had something to hide- wasn't incorrect.

Maybe this would give him a clue as to what alien species Dev was. Just doing a quick cross reference wouldn't do any harm. After all, he had a right to know.

Bones cleared his throat a little self consciously. Talking to computers always made him feel a little funny.

"Computer, uh, cross reference the amount of copper in these scans to all known alien species."

There was a whirring for a moment and the answer popped up on the screen as the mechanical voice read it out.

"Romulan and Vulcan are the closest match for the amount of copper present in Devon Tstill's blood. Do you wish for me to theorize?"

_Vulcan? _

"Uh...sure."

"Most likely cause of concentration of copper in said patient's blood: one quarter alien."

"Vulcans don't marry humans. It's not logical enough for them," grumbled Bones. "But Romulan? Don't know much about them...but they're not Vulcan."

"Your hypothesis is most likely correct," the computer said, still thinking Bones was talking to it.

"Romulan," Bones muttered. "The Romulans attacked this ship. She was on the flagship of Starfleet."

The answer was all too obvious.

"She's a spy," he breathed, slamming his fists onto the desk. "An effing spy."

_It's all her fault. All of this. All the lives lost. _

_I loved her. The filthy, good for nothing..._

The study was quiet as Bones sat, dumbfounded at his realization. But it was not silent. If you were in the room, perhaps as a virus sized organism on the back of McCoy's hand, you may have heard a troubling sound: The sound of our beloved doctor's heart shattering into a thousand pieces.

* * *

**And there you have it folks! Please forgive my lack of updates! My life has steadily gotten crazier. I got sick, then went back to school and got NaOh (sodium hydroxide- huge corrosive) in my eye, got an acid burn _in my eye_...uh, lots of homework, NANOWRIMO coming up, friends, figure skating, hating on the guy [Read: jerk] who messed with my head...**

**Yup. My life is pretty jam packed full of "fun" stuff! **

**Ok, reviews reviews reviews. A HUGE thank you to all the new people who have subscribed- too many to list here, actually- and to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. **

**Now, please punch that little button down there that says "review" because I NEED TO KNOW what you thought of this chapter. I personally didn't like this chapter very much. I felt weird about it. So if it's so bad that your eyes bleed, please tell me. Also, what do you think of Bones' misconception about Devon? Hate? Interesting? Love (you'd be freaky if you liked it.)? Is Dev going to survive? The one who MOST CLOSELY PREDICTS what's going on in my head wins cookys (I meant to misspell that!) and a side character of their choice later on in the story!**

**A little shout out to ficklefangirl who had won a contest a few chapters previously- Iris Stirling was her idea! A round of applause for ficklefanfgirl!**

**Alrighty guys...so yeah. Please review. Tell me how bad this chapter was, what you think will happen, and how I can improve on something. Thanks!**

**LLAP!**

**-Owly**


	18. Chapter 18: It's not a surprise

**Kitty243: Thanks for the review! Here's the update you asked for! :)**

**Live2Ride2Live: Thanks for the compliments!**

**DuckiesgoMoo: Did I get your name right? HA, I'm just kewl like that. Need there be another reason?**

**Koryu Elric: I think I addressed my issues in the PM. :) But yeah, I do see what you mean. Workin' on it. :D**

**Galactic Cannibalism: LOL. I'm still amused. And...so far, you're the winner. YOU WIN! Pretty much everything you guessed was SPOT ON! Congrats! Send me your character profile at your own leisure. :)**

**Chloe-Cheese: It's great to hear from you! And no...I can't tell you if they'll survive or not...sorry! And sorry about this chapter-you're going to hate me for the rest of your life.**

**FickleFangirl: Thanks for the compliment! :)**

**Ok all. I just threw this together in a half hour because I have to give you all a heads up on some stuff, so I'm SO SORRY in advance for the horribleness that is going to ensue. Anyway, tomorrow starts NaNoWriMo. For those of you who don't know, this means that I'm going to write a 50000 word novel in one months. That's 2000 words a day, give or take a few. So, I'm going to be UBER busy. Which means I probably won't update, unless I get some pretty epic reviews or I finish early or have a LOT of free time :(. I'm sorry!**

**Another thing: Some people have wondered what's up with my strange non use of cuss words. The straight and straight of it is that I don't like to cuss. I've never said a cuss word and probably never will. I know this makes my story more childish and less realistic, but that's who I am. Deal with it. :)**

**One last thing: I'm sorry about how bad this chapter is. Really. I'm sitting on my front porch handing out halloween candy and typing so I can get this done before NaNoWriMo. Sorry again!**

* * *

Jim climbed out of the hole quickly. Without Devon on his back, the task was relatively simple. Sort of. His hands were still raw from his previous climb, and his head hurt as if a band of Klingons were having it out in his skull. He levered himself up onto the plain and lay on his stomach, breathing hard. For a moment there was a bitter-sweet moment of temptation. Just lie there, never moving. Sleep. Oh, how he wanted to sleep. Just a quick nap...it couldn't hurt...

_"Me? Enlist in Starfleet? You must be really down on your recruiting quota."_

_Captain Pike stared at the young man before him. Dried blood caked his clothes and face, and two twists of standard bathroom tissue were stuffed up his nostrils. The mottled skin on the young man's fac told the story of the fight which had occurred a few hours previously._

_"Your father was captain of a Starship for 12 minutes. He saved 800 lives. I dare you to do better."_

Jim started from his stupor. The memory had just surfaced, unbidden. Almost as if the MIA Pike were taunting him from wherever the heck in the universe he was.

_Well dang it all, Captain Pike, sir, _he thought._ Respectfully, if you're still alive, now's a horrible time to be butting into my thoughts._

But the damage was done. He stood up straight and shivered. It was getting dark. Idly, he wondered how much time there was left in the day on this planet or if it was just a storm coming in.

Either way, it spelled out nothing good for either of them.

He looked down into the pit and sighed.

"Dev...what are we going to do?" he said, staring down at his best friend forlornly. "This is big. Huge. That Vulcan is going to destroy them all. We're not good enough to save the world. We don't know enough. Can't do enough."

Jim gripped the makeshift rope he had in his hand tightly, bracing his muscles.

"You might die. Bones might die. Everyone on Earth might die."

_"He saved 800 lives. I dare you to do better."_

Jim stared critically down at his friend. She was so pale. If he didn't know better, she would have appeared to be dead.

"I'm going to start with you. Come on!" he grunted.

Taking a breath, Jim pulled on the rope he was holding in his hands. He had shredded Dev's pack into bandage sized strips and wound the bandages until they were strong enough to support Devon's weight. After the ends had been tied together, it was an easy matter to rig up a sling out of Devon's jacket and tie her to the rope.

But this, this was the dangerous part. Because Dev was unconscious, Jim wouldn't know if he had injured her or not until he got her into the hands of someone with medical expertise. In her fragile state, anything could go wrong. He could kill her inadvertently, and not know it until he got to the Starbase.

Carefully, Jim raised the rope hand over hand, muscles popping with the strain of keeping the ascent constant and slow. Devon swung precariously in her sling, bumping into the ice wall with sickening thumps. With each blow she took, Jim winced. His feet were slipping, his arms aching, and she still had to come over the edge. With a herculean effort, Jim pulled her to the top and caught her. Now all of her weight was resting on his arms. He grunted, and tried to gently place her on the ice beside him...but instead dumped her in a tangle of limbs. He winced. If she survived this whole freaking ordeal, there would be bruises. She'd kill him.

"Alright now, Dev," he murmured. "Up and at 'em."

After a perfunctory look over her to ascertain that nothing was broken, at least (trying as hard as he could not to let any thoughts of her attractive body take over), Jim slung her over his back and opened the tricorder. It pointed him towards the Starbase, and he fixed the direction in his mind, verifying it with landmarks he could see in the distance. The tricorder was then stowed in his pocket, and off he went.

The trek was grueling. Devon's added weight made the already difficult hike even more so. The extra 115 or so pounds put Jim's balance out completely. Recovering after slipping, for example, became a test of will, character, and strength, not to mention coordination. Every mis-placed foot and snow drift presented a new challenge.

So, it comes as no surprise that when the giant alien predator comes running through the storm after our heroes, they don't make it.

* * *

Pike slept fitfully. He wasn't sure how much time had passed, whether it be five hours or five days.

He assumed the former, as they hadn't reached Earth yet. Even so, the relative quiet he was being left in scared him more than a squadron of klingons.

Suddenly, a soft voice broke into his consciousness.

"I hope you're not too brain dead. I need some answers."

Pike opened his eyes and had to stifle a start of surprise. It was the girl.

"No, I'm not brain dead, thanks for asking. I suppose I should thank you for whatever you gave me," he replied. It was an effort to keep his tone bantering.

"I'm sorry," the girl said softly. "I hate this job. It was all my fault. I didn't know that they were going to actually use the Centurion slugs. If I had, I'd never've given them away. They're medicinal, actually."

"Medicinal my-" Pike started to say, but was interrupted.

"DEVON!" shouted a hoarse voice from some intercom Pike hadn't been aware of. The girl-Devon, apparently- jumped. Before Pike could finish his sentence, Devon whispered "I wanted to show you this" and placed a hand on his arm.

Immediately, Pike saw the schematics of the ship in his mind. A voice- the girl's- explained in resounding tones that "There's an unprotected area here, here, and here." With each "here" a point on the map glowed blue. "You can be beamed directly from there onto your ship. I'm sorry."

And she scuttled away.

* * *

Bones sat at his desk, unsure what to do. _To tell Spock or not to tell Spock? That is the question. _

Tell him, and any chance Devon had would be gone.

Of course, he shouldn't care. No. The faster the girl was put under lock and key the better.

But...

Something about all those nights he had spent talking to her when she couldn't sleep, patted her back as she cried, and gently teasing her for all her quirks came back to him at once. It tore at his heartstrings. Made him think twice about immediately writing her off as a good for nothing. Yet, logic trumped this feeling by a hundred miles.

Bones slapped the computer before him. Too much hesitation! What was wrong with him?

Logic, Spock's answer to everything, couldn't explain this hesitation. That unwillingness to incriminate Devon just now.

Heck, why was he even worrying about this? He probably would never see her here again.

_That's not true. _

Something deep in his head screamed that Devon was closer than it appeared. Bones shook his head an stalked out of his office. That was most definitely enough introspection for one day.

**

* * *

Alrighty then! Just leave a review telling me how much you hate me and this chapter! Thanksto all of ya'!**

**LLAP!**

**-Owly**


	19. Chapter 19: She's Sitting Right There

Jim felt like he had been stumbling through the freezing, barren wasteland for his whole life. The tricorder's directions had long since lost their novelty, and it was all he could do just to walk in a straight line. This, added on with the fact that Dev was getting heavier and heavier with every step, made him long for the warmth of the Enterprise- even with the snobby Vulcan in charge.

Over the howling of the wind, Jim's tired ears picked up a strange noise floating towards him on the gusts of freezing cold air.

It was almost like the pitiful sound Bones made on those mornings when Dev decided to get them up early and go for a jog then a morning swim in Academy's gym. Like a cross between a lion and a bear and a lost little puppy.

Ah, he could hear it as if it were just yesterday that Devon was shouting in his ear, and Bones was groaning on the other bed...

Wait a darn second. That wasn't a recollection he was hearing. Something was out there.

Jim shifted his burden in his arms, wishing that he could put her down just for one second.

There it was again. And- _what was that? _

Squinting through the snow, Jim could see something hurtling towards them. The something was large, hairy, and not unlike a boar-lion-gorilla-tiger monster from a child's nightmares. That was odd. Now he was seeing things too...

"Argh!" Jim said, surprised. _It seems that there's a giant monster coming to eat us. _

Suddenly the calculator in his brain put two and two together and got "RUN."

With an almost comical start, Jim did a little hopping turn and tried to scamper back down the slope he had just come up. Unfortunately, the day had not been easy on him and all his muscles were dysfunctional, to say the least. He tumbled down the slope, landing on what appeared to be a long, frozen lake.

"Dev!" he shouted as he down at his empty hands with fear, then wildly around him. THERE! Somehow, she had slid all the way across the lake on her side and was lying in a pathetic heap a good twenty meters away. But there was no time to contemplate her position, as the monster itself was tumbling down the slope in the same fashion that they had only nanoseconds before.

Jim slipped and slid over the ice with one goal in sight: his friend. He reached her just in time, picking her up and groaning as the weight fell upon his shoulders no time to think about it. They were off again, running for their lives. Or more correctly, Jim running for the both of them and failing miserably.

There was another crash and a great cracking as if a giant had suddenly crunched a giant sized bag of fried potato slices. Jim glanced behind himself to see an even bigger monster rear its ugly head out of the ice and snap up the other shaggy one in one gulp, then turn to the two humans. It roared and pulled its body out of the hole in the ice, revealing six legs to match its six gigantic teeth that showed in the cavernous mouth which was the crowning glory of its ugly head.

Stumbling forwards, Jim smelled rotting flesh as the beast exhaled its foul breath over the both of them. He gagged, eyes watering.

By some twisted chance of fate, Jim managed to keep his legs pumping fast enough to keep in front of the animal long enough to tumble down another steep slope.

At the base of the slope where he came to rest, Jim saw a small black hole open at the base of a huge cliff. A cave? Perhaps the home of another, even more dangerous monster?

No time to contemplate that now.

He grabbed Dev's arm and started to drag her towards the mouth of the opening. _The monster was gaining... fifty feet...forty. _

They were within the cavern, but not far enough in. The monster could still reach them.

_Thirty feet and gaining. _

"NO!" Jim shouted, more out of adrenaline than real desire for conversation with the beast, though in his oxygen deprived state of mind, he wouldn't have been surprised if the monster had stopped right there and begun to debate the mystery of human life with him.

_Ten feet. _

The huge thing opened its maw and flickered out its tongue, which wrapped around Dev's ankle and pulled with all its strength. Jim felt the tug and was not able to strengthen his grip fast enough.

Dev was pulled out of his grasp, and the he saw a flash of red as the tongue started to pull her back into its mouth.

"DEVON!"

He dove headfirst at the animal, grabbing Dev's hand and pulling her back. It was like playing a deadly version of tug-a-war with his friend as the rope. There was a moment of deadly stand still, neither the beat nor the human able to gain the upper hand. Then a horribly sickening popping sound and both of Devon's legs seemed to gain more mobility than should be physically possible.

Jim swallowed, pale.

It seemed as if her knees had both become dislocated. Out of Devon's mouth came a terrifying sound, more animal than human. It was of pure agony.

And then- salvation! Out of nowhere, a fur clad figure appeared, waving a flaming torch in the face of the attacking monster. The thing recoiled and relinquished its grip on Devon. Without wasting another second, Jim pulled Devon away from the thing. Another moment and the monster was gone.

Jim bent over his friend. Her legs were both covered with ugly red stripes, evidence of the cruel torture they had just undergone. But that wasn't the worst of it- her calves hung loosely from her knee sockets like sick puppets or prosthetics. There was a visible gap between the knee cap and the tibia and fibula.

"James Tiberius Kirk," said the person who had saved him. Jim looked up, startled. It was a man, wearing jackets made of furs. He was staring at Jim's face with an expression of wonder and excitement.

"Uhh, how do you know my name?" Jim asked, backing away slowly with Dev in tow.

"How did you find me?" the stranger repeated, ignoring Jim's request.

Jim stared. "Who are you? I think you have the wrong person, really, thanks and all but-"

"I am and always shall be your greatest friend," continued the other. "I am Spock."

Jim narrowed his eyes speculatively. "If you were Spock," he said. "You would know that we're _not _friends. You hate me, remember? You marooned me here for mutiny."

"Mutiny? Then you are not captain of the Enterprise?" the man asked, head tilted.

"No...no, you are. Look, can you help me pick up my friend and put her over there? She's hurt really bad." Jim gestured to a small recess in the wall, and Spock nodded.

"Allow me to carry her to the back room where I have set up a small heat source," he said, gently picking the unconscious girl up though his eyes never left Jim's face.

The self-proclaimed Spock led the way through a few short passages in the hollowed out cliff side and situated them beside a flickering fire he had apparently built a little while before.

"It is remarkably pleasing to see you again, old friend," the man said. "Especially after the events of today."

_Old friend, huh_? Jim thought sarcastically. He would have passed a rather rude comment at this point in time, except for two things: 1. He was at the mercy of a man who could either save or kill him and Dev. 2. There was something strangely familiar about the way this person talked.

"Um, sir," he said at last. "I don't have any idea how you know who I am or any of that, but I don't know you. If you were Spock, like I said earlier, you'd know that you're captain of a ship...Pike was taken hostage by-"

"By Nero," completed the stranger. Jim glanced up, surprised.

"What do you know about him?"

The man sat down heavily, expression clouded. "He and his compatriots are remarkably disturbed. Him, his first officer Ayel, and a troubled girl- Devon I believe she was called-"

"What?" Jim exclaimed, standing up. The puzzle pieces were starting to fall together. [Lately, he realized, more and more of his life seemed to be disjointed.] If the Romulan ship was indeed from the future, then this was really Spock talking, which meant- "Her name was Devon? Devon Tstill? And she had pointed ears, like yours?"

A small jolt of surprise crossed the Vulcan's face. It appeared that he too was seeing the problems with what Jim had just said.

"You know a girl with the same name?" he asked for confirmation.

"Yes," Jim breathed."What's more- she's right there."

* * *

Ensign Chekov stared unseeingly at the controls before him. At his fingertips was the power of the entire Enterprise. With a touch of a button, he could incinerate a whole ship. With a touch of a button, he could kill thousands of people.

But there were billions that were already dead.

Tears filled his wide eyes. The scene from the transporter room flitted through his head.

"_I'm losing her! Losing her! _**_I'mlosingher!_**"

It had been a nightmare. For a moment, all the Vulcans had been small lights on a screen. Captain Spock's mother had been one of them too, someone who was about to materialize on the Enterprise, shaken, but none the worse for wear.

But then it had taken a turn for the worse. Everything had changed in that split second. His mind, which had never before failed him in any situation, had not been able to compensate for the reality on the planet below.

The Rock under the captain's mother had fallen, and with it, the woman. The computer could not have held the lock.

Chekov ran the scenario in his mind again and again. Could he have saved her if he had reacted differently? Would it have been possible?

The control panel of the transporter seemed to be right before him. There, the energizer. There, the matter stream. And there, in the middle, the manual signal lock.

He could not have saved her, even if he had been blessed with the reaction time of an android. Or could he have?

"Chekov?" someone said softly. A hand brushed his shoulder. "Hey, Chekov. Are you ok? Do you need to go to sickbay? You look kind of pale."

The boy looked up. It was Sulu, his friend of the last few hours. The man was at least five years older than he, but exuded a kind of steady stillness of a man years beyond his age.

"Yez," Chekov muttered in reply. "I am fine."

"You don't look it," Sulu responded. "Is there something you need to talk about?"

His concern was brotherly. Chekov felt comforted. This was the kind of brother he had always wanted. His real brother- Sven- had never been this kind. It had always been "Chekov is a sissy" and "Chekov can't play with me because he has to study."

"I don't know," he said, looking down at the muted lights of the controls. "Have you ever zerwed on a ztarsheep before?"

"Yes I have. And...I have had friends who have died. Lost people before. Don't worry about it, Chekov. It wasn't your fault. You're one of the best ensigns I've known, and you were brilliant. Kirk, Captain Spock, all those Vulcans all owe their lives to you. Heck Chekov, I owe my life to you. You have single handedly preserved the Vulcan culture. Don't think about what happened. Just keep pressing on with the mission."

Chekov nodded numbly, still staring down at the lights.

"Zhank you, zir."

Sulu left with another look at his young friend, shaking his head. His first encounter with death had been on his first assignment. It had been a young man lost in a skirmish with a klingon patrol. The experience had been traumatizing. But he was here today to tell the tale. Admittedly, Sulu had been older than Chekov when it had happened, but Chekov was an amazing kid. He'd pull through.

* * *

Spock looked at where he had set Devon down and noticed for the first time her dislocated knees. "She is injured!"

He got up and moved swiftly to her, inspecting her legs carefully. "Both knees are out of their sockets. I can push them back in, but you must hold her."

Jim nodded, glad that he was doing something good for his friend. "Ok. What do I do?"

Spock instructed him quickly, and Jim took a position behind Devon, holding her armpits and bracing her body against his. On the count of three, Spock jerked at her leg. No response except for a low moan escaping Dev's lips.

"You must hold her tighter," ordered the Vulcan. "She cannot move."

Jim adjusted his grip, holding her as steady as he could. Spock counted to three again. As the third syllable dropped from his lips, he tugged on Dev's leg. There was another sickening crack. When Spock took his hands away, the distended quality was gone from the knee. Within another count of three the other knee had been put back in its proper socket.

"Good," Spock said. "Very good. Now, are you telling me that this girl is indeed Devon Tstill?"

Jim nodded. "I've known her since I sat next to her on the shuttle to the Academy."

Spock sighed. "Then things are even more different than I had originally assumed."

"Would you like to explain?" snapped Jim angrily. "I believe that you're Spock, but would you care to tell me how exactly you _got _here?"

"Of course. Allow me." He reached a hand over and tried to touch Jim's face. Jim caught his wrist, jerking back, but at a look from the older man, released his grip and allowed him to place a finger on his forehead and next to his nose.

_Weird. That's the same thing Dev did before she-_

A jolt of electricity passed through Jim's body. It was a familiar feeling by now, after the recent things he had experienced with Devon. However, this time was different. Like the difference between being shocked by a bolt of lightning and getting that tiny little shock someone transfers to you from their finger.

"Our minds," whispered Spock. "One and together."

Whiteness filled Jim's mind. A moment of terrifying white fog passed and was replaced with a picture of Spock and a group of Romulans discussing some charts and equations that were written on a screen before them.

"The Romulan star was going to go supernova. The Vulcan Science Academy and I devised a way to stop it from destroy Romulus entirely."

A huge ship, seemingly made of a jelly-like material because of the way its viewscreens rippled, was being built.

"We outfitted our fastest ship. I was going to sacrifice myself to serve all races. It was logical. I was to fly it to the star and absorb the energy with a black hole before it went supernova."

Suddenly, they were flying through space, racing at Warp 10 through space towards the Romulan star system.

"We were en route when the unthinkable happened. The star went supernova before the predicted time."

The star, which had before been a dull brownish yellow color, suddenly contracted onto itself. There was a moment of pitch blackness, then it exploded outward. Romulus was instantaneously destroyed.

"Romulus was destroyed."

A wave of great grief washed over Jim and he gasped. The emotion was so intense that he had trouble breathing.

"But my mission still stood. I prepared the red matter."

Yet again, the picture changed. A cylindrical containment field inside of which was a perfect red sphere of some glistening material filled the image. Spock pressed a small needle into the sphere, which shrank away from the metal before rising to greet it, and pulled out a minuscule drop of the substance. He loaded it into a canister, then ejected the canister into the fiery explosion that had been the sun of Romulus.

Faster than you could blink, a gigantic black hole appeared in the center of the explosion. Any trace of it or Romulus disappeared, sucked into the gravitational wormhole like soda up a child's straw.

Jim watched as this Spock- the older Spock- attempted to escape the gravitational flux. Lights and alerts began to flash on the control panel before him. The scientific readings were off the charts, so much so that they did not pick up the giant ship bearing down on the smaller until they were almost on top of each other.

Spock was grimly silent. He jerked out of the way, attempting to avoid a collision. The larger ship followed.

One larger orange light on the controls pulsed brightly and Spock wasted no time in punching it.

"Who are you?" he grunted as he wrestled with the ship, staring at the man who had just hailed him.

"I am Nero," he replied, interference making the picture jump on the screen. "I am arresting you for treason against the Romulan Empire. You will pay."

Spock shut the communications off, dismissing the lunatic as just that- insane. A mistake, one of the few that he had ever made. And he would pay dearly.

The monstrous ship, which was obviously the Narada, chased the smaller ship down, firing heavily. Spock's shields held, but barely. With every shot, a few more warning lights blinked on. The fight was furious, and it seemed inevitable that one or the other would be destroyed by the flying photon bursts.

But something worse happened. As he tried to avoid a close shot by the Narada, Spock flew dangerously close to the black hole. His warp drive, which as already depleted from the maneuvers and close shots by the Narada, was not up to the job of pulling away. Spock seemed to weigh the choices in his mind and came to a decision.

He turned to the black hole and flew right at it. Before he could make it however, the Narada cut him off in what would have been an ingenious flying maneuver except for one thing- he was sucked into the black hole first.

"Nero and his ship went into the black hole first." Spock's voice rang in Jim's mind more clearly than Devon's ever had. "And he waited here, in this time continuum, for twenty years. All that time, he waited and planned for my demise."

Spock showed Jim blackness. But within the blackness, fear and doubt pervaded his mind. "I do not know how long I traveled. It was timeless."

A light blossomed in the middle of the black.

"Then I materialized into your world. Nero was waiting for me."

Jim watched as the smaller ship was enveloped by the Narada. The scene switched to the inside of the larger ship where Spock's ship was being met by a small group of captors. The tallest was Nero, his tattooed face covered with a maniacal look of pleasure. The one to his direct right was another pointy faced, pointy eared Romulan. However, to the left of Nero was a medium sized woman. The view changed and Jim found himself staring directly at an older version of his best friend Devon.

"This girl is known to me. Devon Tstill, daughter of Sv'arak Tstill and Anna Marie Tstill. The leaders of the most powerful illegal trading company in the galaxy. She, along with the Romulans, captured me and marooned me here to watch the destruction of my planet. Nero wanted me to see it and to feel the same pain that he had."

Indescribable grief, suffering, and anguish washed over Jim, stealing his breath away as effectively as a lethal hypo injection. The emotions seemed to sweep the images away. He was returned to his own body in a deluge of light. Gasping and reeling from the intense experience, Jim stumbled backwards toward the wall.

"You _do _feel," he huffed.

"Forgive me," Spock said gently. "Emotional transference is the effect of the mind meld."

"I know. I've experienced it before. But you feel different than Dev does."

"It is to be expected. She is after all, only a quarter Vulcan."

Jim looked at his friend, who was slumped against the wall. He wiped his eyes.

"And the daughter of an illegal mafia leader."

"Do not dwell on the fact. She is not the same girl who is now on the Narada."

"That's right. She sure the heck isn't." Jim sighed and let the thoughts of the Vulcan wash through his mind. "Going back in time- you changed all our lives."

"Yet remarkably," Spock replied. He seemed to realize that the young man before him was not the same as the Kirk he had known in another universe. "There are fascinating similarities."

Kirk nodded mutely, still numb from the mind meld and the information he had just received. His face must have told what he was feeling because Spock took one glance at him and said, "We must go to the Starbase not too far from here. I will carry the girl."

"Wait," Jim interrupted, putting a hand on the old man's arm. "Where...where you come from...Did I know my father?"

"He lived to proudly see you become captain of the Enterprise." Spock tilted his head and seemed to realize what would exactly cause Jim to ask such a question. Without a word, he patted Jim's hand once. "We must start for the Starbase. There is not much time."

* * *

**I'm back! Before you throw a knife at my head saying "WHY NO UPDATE FOR SO LONG?" let me explain: **

**1. NaNoWriMo (I DID WIN! 50K words! w00t!) **

**2. Exams. **

**3. I'm sick. Actually, the reason you have this update right now is because I have strep throat. I was sick since last friday, went to classes yesterday, came home...crashed. Now I'm sick. At home. On the couch. Trying to do some homework and procrastinating. You're welcome!**

**So love it, hate it, want to stab me...OHOH. I forgot. **

ht tp: /ne ws.y aho o.c o m/ s/n m /20 1011 10/fil m_nm/u s_chr ispi ne_2

**Remove the spaces, copy and paste in another tab. Now, this movie...It must be fate. If you get what I'm talking about...leave a review tellin' me that you think it's hilarious. :) Also, tell me how badly I wrote this. :P**

**LLAP people!**

**-Owly**


	20. Chapter 20: Nothing

"Well this is wonderful!" Jim hollered sarcastically over the wind to Spock. They had been tramping through the snow for twenty minutes, and it was only getting harder to pull his feet in and out of three foot drifts. "How much further?"

Apparently, in the wake of a leader other than himself, the whiney little boy in Jim made his appearance.

"Over that mound!" Spock called back, gesturing with his chin to a large hill some fifty meters directly ahead. Relieved, Jim put new energy into dragging his feet along the snowy path. _Right, left, right, left. _One foot at a time. He focused his eyes on the snow and Spock's boots, just thinking about the day's events. It seemed strange that only that morning he and Bones had been arguing about who was going to get out of bed first. Since then, he had found out more about himself, Spock, and Dev than he thought he ever would. The whole ordeal was both invigorating and paralyzing.

Before he knew it, Jim found himself on the top of the hillock and looking down into a valley which housed a small black, rundown Starbase. Salvation.

Perhaps another twenty minutes later, Spock and Jim arrived at the doors to the Starbase. Jim banged on them with his fist, but no one came. With a grunt, he pried them open, allowed Spock to slip inside and followed, then wedged them together again.

They found themselves in a long hallway with rusted walls and flickering lighting.

"Hello?" Jim yelled, shivering and pulling back his hood. His cry echoed and faded. Suddenly from some recess in the wall that was invisible to the eye from Jim's vantage point, an alien appeared. It was small, the size of a human child. It's face was laid out in rough human form, but its skin was green and its nose was more snake like than anything else. There were strange crests on either side of its face, seemingly made up of more of its rough, green skin. The clothes it was wearing was a simple shirt and a leather apron.

As he- Jim decided that it was a he- drew closer, it grew evident that he was a worker of some kind, for he had black goggles strapped over his eyes and the apron was dirty with grease and other mechanical whatnot. When the goggles were lifted, they revealed to eyes buds on the ends of stalks which protruded from his two eye sockets. He surveyed them for a moment, beckoned that they follow, and started to run back down the hallway. Spock and Jim exchanged glances and started after him.

They were led to a large open room filled with all the things needed to make an engineer a very happy person for a very long time. There were spare engines parts lying around the floor, a pile of scrap metal in the corner, and what seemed to be a hull from an old starship that was broken into pieces dominating a good part of the room. In the far far corner of the room next to the scrap metal, a small shuttle squatted on the floor. In the middle of all this was a normal looking desk, cluttered with tools and books and PADDs- and even a caged Tribble sitting precariously atop a large pile of "Warp Monthly" magazines.

Sitting at the desk was a medium sized man. Covering his head was a brown hat, and covering his clothes was a brown coat. The alien said something unintelligible and the man looked up, eyebrows furrowed with anger.

"This is unacceptable!" he said with a strong scottish accent, standing up. Spock ignored the man's indignation.

"Fascinating," he muttered. Kirk looked to Spock and back to the other man.

"What?" he asked nervously, wondering what other kind of strange time conundrum was going to occur.

The man spread his hands wide. "Look, I'm sure it's no' yer fault, and I know you lads are just doin' yer jobs, but couldnna you've come a wee bit sooner? For six months- six months!- I've been livin' on nothin' but Starfleet protein nibs and the promise of real food delivery! It's pretty clear what's goin' on here, innit?"

He shifted his weight from foot to foot, waiting for one of the two to answer. When no response was forthcoming, he responded to himself.

"It's punishment! Ongoin'! For somethin' that was **_clearly _**and accident!"

Spock didn't seem to hear the man's tirade and was instead engrossed in his own little revelation. "You are Montgomery Scott."

Jim looked at Spock, incredulous. "You _know_ him?"

"That's me- Scotty," the engineer ranted. "You've come to the right place unless you're lookin' for another hardworking equally starved Starfleet lackey 'round here."

The green alien raised one hand and spoke up. "Me." Scotty rolled his eyes and turned to his partner. "Keenser, shut up! You eat nothin'. Ya'eat like a bean, and yer done for a week! I'm talkin' about real food. And now you're here...so, thank you. Where is it?"

For the third time, Spock brushed aside Scotty's demands like a larger dog brushing off a smaller dog at mealtime.

"You _are _in fact the same Mr. Scott who postulated and formalized the theory for trans-warp beaming."

"Well that's what I'm talkin' about, innit?" exclaimed Scotty, throwing his hands in the air and sitting down again. "How in the great galaxy d'you think I ended up on this forsaken planet? I got into a wee debate with my instructor on the issue of relativistic physics and subspace travel."

Picking up a steel mug of water, he took a drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"He seemed ta' think that the range of transporting, say, a roast turkey, was limited to a few hundred miles. So I told him that I could not only beam somethin'...say, a grapefruit, from one planet to an adjacent planet in the same system- which is easy, by the way- but if I were so inclined I could actually do it with a life form! So...I tested it out on Admiral Archer's prize beagle."

"I know that dog," Jim said, trying to head off the engineer's ranting. Admiral Archer's prize beagle had been a yapping thing that had taken one look at Jim and peed all over his shoes. "What happened to it?"

Scotty was about to answer when, in a cooler moment of his anger, he noticed the unconscious form of Devon in Spock's arms.

"Disappeared in transport. I do feel bad about it." he said quickly. "What happened to _her?_"

All three looked down at Devon. Her face was pale with the cold, and her legs had a strange bluish quality that did not look healthy.

"Uh...long story," Jim muttered. "Let's just say she ticked off the captain of our ship and we got marooned here because we're trying to save our effing planet."

"That's the first I've heard of anythin'," Scotty replied, interested. "What's goin' on up there?"

"We shall inform you," cut in Spock. "However, there are other matters to attend to. Do you have a working transport pad?"

"Well a'course I do," Scotty laughed. "But why d'you need it?"

Jim filled the engineer in quickly about the Romulan situation as they walked down the long hallway again and into a spacecraft hanger. When he was done, Scotty scratched his head and said, "Well, that's o' great big riot up there, I'll be sure. Are you sure you don't have any food with you?"

They got to a slightly larger shuttle and climbed inside. Spock immediately found the transport controls and sat down, handing Jim his friend.

"So what exactly are you doin'?" Scotty asked, leaning over the computer.

"Inputting your equation for transwarp beaming," replied Spock, the hint of a smile in his voice. Scotty's mouth fell open as he digested that statement.

"You mean...What the...Are you from the future?"

"He is. We're not." Jim shrugged.

Even more intrigued, the engineer read the equation that the Vulcan had put into the computer. "Brilliant. I came up with this, you say? It just never occurred to me to think of space as the thing that was moving."

"Ah, that is where time travel comes in handy, Mr. Scott," Spock said. "In fact, it _did _occur to you."

Scotty laughed nervously, peering at the computer screen. "Well that's brilliant, innit?"

There was a moment of contemplative silence from the three men. Suddenly, a thought struck Jim."What are we going to do once we've gotten back to the Enterprise?"

"Oh, it's the Enterprise, is it?" Scotty interrupted. "She's on her maiden voyage? Well, you musta done somethin' right to get on _that _ship, kiddo. She's one well endowed lady! I'd love to get my hands on her ample nacelles, if you'll pardon the engineering parlance."

Spock ushered them onto the transporter pads.

"Aren't you coming with us?" Jim asked suddenly, realizing that the Vulcan had not gotten on.

"No, Jim. My destiny lies along another path."

"You're destiny?" he snorted. "You can go follow your _destiny_ another day_, _we kind of have a _world _to save here! Besides, Your other self won't believe me! Only _you _can really explain what's going on here-"

"Under _no _circumstances can he be made aware of my existence. You must promise me this," Spock murmured intensely.

"So I can't tell _you _that I'm following _your own _orders? Well why not? What happens?" Jim pressed belligerently.

"This is one rule you cannot break, Jim. You must take control of the ship."

"How?" Jim asked, shifting Devon in an attempt at a movement of disgust."Over your dead body?"

Spock almost smiled at this. "Preferably not. There is, however, Starfleet Regulation 619. It states that any commanding officer who is emotionally compromised by the mission at hand _must _resign said command."

Kirk sighed, looking up at the old Vulcan. "So..I need to emotionally compromise you? You're Vulcan. I don't think that actually helps."

Turning and preparing himself to energize the transporter, Spock nodded. "Jim, I just lost my planet. I can tell you: I am emotionally compromised."

"Aye then," Scotty said. "Are you sure this'll work? This transporter's pretty dodgy by itself, and I think-"

"Mr. Scott...My only advice to you is to start to trust your own equations."

"But we're hurtling through space! There has to be some margin for error-"

"I have calculated that there is a margin for error of four meters, which is perfectly safe."

Jim thought he heard the engineer mutter "unless it's four meters out in space, ya' loony..." Grinning, he glanced up at the old Vulcan, he saw for the first time a genuine fondness in the normally expressionless eyes.

"You know, coming back in time...that's cheating," he said, overwhelmed.

"A trick I learned a long time ago from a very good friend," Spock replied. Jim nodded, feeling that the sentence had more meaning for the old man than for himself. Spock held up his hand in the traditional Vulcan salute. "Live long and prosper."

He pressed energize. Jim bent his head. "Let's go find Bones, Dev," he whispered, and the world was enveloped with white.

* * *

Lily Thrush twirled a strand of her brown hair on one finger, surveying the security scans with practiced intensity.

This was her first time working on the bridge. It had been a hard trek to make it up to the top of the Enterprise like this, so she was going to take this job, very, very seriously.

Which explains why she squealed like a little kid when an alert showed up on her sensors.

"Captain!" she cried breathlessly, swinging around in her chair. "We have intruders in Engineering!"

Captain Spock turned his attention to the ensign without as much as batting an eyelash.

"On the viewscreen," he ordered tersely. Lily jammed the override button and the security sensor display and the security cameras came on before the whole bridge.

With the picture blown up almost 150%, the intruders were easily recognized. Spock's face turned a delicate shade of green as he stared.

"A security team to engineering!" he barked. "And alert Doctor McCoy that he is needed on the bridge."

* * *

The transporter felt different than usual. On a good day, the transporter just felt slightly uncomfortable as you were being dematerialized, but then when you were being put back together, felt almost like nothing at all. The time lapsed between dematerialization and materialization was almost nonexistent.

However, whatever strange calculation the older Spock had typed into the computer stretched the actual traveling time into what seemed like hours. Even though Jim's brain wasn't physically there, some part of his awareness was conscious of great space rushing by and there were sounds- screaming and phasers and the primal roars of animals.

Then they were through. Materialization was quick, and Jim found himself staring delightedly at the inside of the Enterprise. Looking down at Devon's pinched face, he grinned.

"We made it through!" he chortled, gazing around himself with delight. "Mister Scott? Where are you?"

There was no reply. "MISTER SCOTT? SCOTTY?" Jim shouted as loud as he could. There was a faint tapping noise...from inside one of the engine coolant tanks. Kirk's face went slack with dread and he whirled around, setting Dev gently on the floor and pressing his ear against the metal container.

_Taptaptaptap...WHOOSH!_

Within the transparent aluminum pipe for the coolant, there was a rush of bubbles. Jim stared in horror. In a flurry of arms, legs, and his overlarge brown jacket, Scotty had appeared. His eyes were wide with surprise and fright, and he was yelling something from inside the water, though it was impossible to tell exactly what he was saying.

Then the current took hold of him.

Faster than he could blink, Scotty was sucked into another labyrinth of tubes. Jim shouted, pulled off his coat and ran after him. The huge network of coolant tanks impeded his ability to follow the man directly, and he cursed as the engineer was pulled further and further away from him and up into an overhead tube that fed...directly into the turbines.

"SCOTTY!" Jim yelled, frozen for a moment as his mind weighed the different options he had. THERE! A control panel!

A few steps and he was there, another few finger taps on the controls and the screen blinked the message "access granted." There was a metallic grinding, and the emergency maintenance hatch opened at the exact moment Scotty passed it. He fell from the ceiling with a crash, landing on the floor. Water streamed from his mouth and nose as he sat up, choking for air.

"Are you all right?" Jim asked, coming over. The engineer seemed to be a little shell shocked, but he shook it right off and shrugged.

"I'm a little banged up and ma'head's spinnin' but I think I'll be fine!" he shouted over the roar of the water pouring down from the hatch. Jim nodded and pulled him up. "Let's get going!"

Together, they hurried back to where Devon had been dropped. Jim picked her up and they rushed over to the stairs that lead to the exit. The stairs pounded under his feet as he raced up them. He looked over one shoulder, making sure that they were still together...and ran right into something hard and cold that pressed into his chest with a solidity that Jim didn't like.

It was a phaser.

Turning slowly, Jim found himself face to face with a familiar looking security guard.

"Come with me," barked the guy, a malicious glint in his eyes. "_Buttercup_."

Jim rolled his eyes. Surely they were passed juvenile insults? Apparently not.

* * *

All three of them were being escorted to the bridge, despite Jim's attempts to get someone to take Devon to sickbay. He was worried about her. It had been over two hours since they had been attacked and marooned on Delta Vega, and she still had no woken up. The mind meld with her and with Spock had left him reeling on the inside, and in his emotional upset, he had almost completely forgotten that his best friend was in dire need of medical attention.

He felt horrible about it. Suppose she was dead? What would he do then?

The thought struck him like a bolt of lightning. What if she really _was _dead? Was it possible that all he was doing was toting a _corpse_ around the Enterprise?

There was one way to find out. He knew from experience that looking for a pulse was just a preliminary check. A pulse in her neck or her wrist could be easily lost in the jolting of his walking. No, there was a better way.

Steeling himself and fighting the panic that was slowly building in his heart, Jim wormed a finger out of his gloves and pressed it against Devon's bare legs.

Nothing happened when he touched her. The skin he felt was cold and stiff, and there was no mental or emotional spike driving into his own mind.

Choking on a sudden block in his throat, Jim squeezed his eyes shut, trying to ignore the marching security guards around him.

She was dead.

* * *

**Sorry so short! I'm on vacation, and we're trying to get a flight to our final destination...unfortunately it's snowed in. I've been awake for 30 hours+ and though not quite insane yet, I'm getting there. So...yeah. Review. Tell me how much you hate me. Kkthxbai. :) **

**LLAP!**

**-Owly**


	21. Chapter 21: I hope I do too

Jim supposed he should be revolted. After all, he _was _carrying a dead body in his arms, and probably had been for the past hour or so.

But for some reason, the more he thought about the fact that the only girl he actually knew but had never slept with was dead made him mad. More than mad, actually. It was a kind of anger he had only ever experienced at the hands of his step father, on those days when the world seemed to be deteriorating around him. Now, this same old anger was brewing behind his eyes. It was a cold and calculating and ready to get revenge.

A few minutes later, Jim and Scotty were marched into the bridge along with their security team. Completely mindful of the task the older Spock- Spock Prime as Jim was now thinking of him- had set to him, he was allowing his anger to fuel his aim of"emotionally compromising" the captain.

"What are you doing here?" Spock demanded immediately. Jim rolled his eyes, barely managing to conceal his fury.

"We thought we'd pop in, get a spot to eat, and help you improve your taste on the decor in here," he replied sarcastically. Spock looked at him for a second, eyes unfathomable, then turned his attention to Scotty, who was dripping water all over the floor.

"Are you in Starfleet?" he asked coldly. Scotty looked from Jim back to the captain and seemed to be wondering exactly what was going on.

"Uh, yes," he said, nodding. "Can I get a towel?"

Spock ignored him, much as Spock Prime had done.

"We're traveling at warp speed. How did you manage to beam aboard this ship?"

"You're the genius," answered Jim. "You figure it out."

"As the captain of this vessel, I order you to tell me," ordered Spock, cold gaze becoming frostier with every passing second. Jim smirked.

"Well I'm. Not. Telling." After every word, Jim paused, accentuating his belligerent tone. "**_Acting _**captain."

"You," barked Spock, addressing Scotty. "How did you beam aboard this ship?"

Scotty looked from Jim to Spock and then back from Spock to Jim. He raised two hands in the universal gesture of nonviolence.

"I'm not taking sides."

Spock seemed to be confounded. In all his years as a Starfleet official, no one had actually ever intentionally said "no" before and it startled him

"What, Spock?" Jim said quietly. If you didn't know him, you might think that his quiet tone was of complete control. If Devon had been alive and at his side, however, she could have explained that the slight pucker of his lips and furrow in his brow expressed more anger than you could ever imagine, and it was using him to its own advantage. "Doesn't that annoy you? Make you a little angry?"

The silence in the room was absolutely complete. No one on board the Enterprise had even _dreamed _of ever talking to a superior officer in that manner before, much less actually done so. It was so unprecedented that some were actually gaping, mouth wide open, as they waited for Spock to reply.

But their patience went unrewarded as Spock decided quite logically that it would prove fruitless to continue to question Jim and turned his attention back to Scotty.

"You are not a member of this ship's crew. As such, under penalty of court martial, I order you to explain to me how you beamed aboard," he hissed at the engineer, normally arched eyebrows now drawn low over his cold eyes. Before Scotty could reply, Jim had continued.

"You're the genius here, Spork," he spat, using Dev's mutilation of the Vulcan's name. "Figure it out for yourself."

"As the captain of this vessel I _order _you to answer the question!" Spock's voice, normally so quiet and collected, could only now be described as raised. Jim smiled to himself, relishing every moment of Spock's emotion. It was time to deal the last blow. "Guards! Escort them to the brig!"

"What is it about you?" Jim asked quietly, eyes burning. "Your planet was just destroyed- your _mother _murdered- and you're not even upset?"

Spock's reply was terse. "Your presumption that these circumstances in any way impede my ability to command this vessel is completely and absolutely inaccu-"

"Yet you were the one that said that emotion was necessary for command." It was his trump card. "I mean did you _see _his ship, Spock? It was effing huge. Did you see what he _did _to your planet? Fear, according to you, would be an asset in this situation-"

"You will not lecture me on the merits of emotion."

Kirk smirked, taking a step closer to Spock. It was, from a certain point of view, the wrong thing to do. From Jim's perspective, it was exactly the right thing to do.

"Step away from me," warned Spock.

"What's it like, Spock?" Jim asked. His anger had not abated, but charged his words with an energy that was felt by everyone in the room. "To feel nothing, no fear, no anger, no love."

The statement was unexpected, and caught Spock like a blow to the gut.

"Or the need to avenge the death of the woman who _gave birth to you?_ You feel _nothing! _It must not even compute for you!"

It was the last straw. In the next moment, many things happened very quickly.

The first thing was that the lift doors swung open, revealing Chief Medical Officer McCoy, who took in the scene before him with one glance. Anger and anxiety passed over his face in quick succession as events started to occur. Also in the lift was an older Vulcan named Sarek, who was known to the crew as Spock's father. He watched proceedings with the same expression as any Vulcan would wear whether they were watching a weather report or a fight to the death.

The next thing was the eruption of Mount Spock. With a yell that spoke of untold anger and grief, he punched Jim with a devastating right hook to the jaw. Kirk was knocked off balance, dropping Devon's cold body on the floor as he himself crashed into a control panel. Spock followed, delivering a crushing and bewildering series of blows that Jim was barely able to block and evade. He was driven back against the con, overcome. Then Spock was choking him and the world turned fuzzy with lack of oxygen. Through Jim's confused brain, he vaguely realized that he had grossly miscalculated. The man wasn't just angry or upset- he was deranged. And it looked like he wasn't going to release the horrible pressure on Jim's windpipe any time soon.

The rest of the room watched in horror as their captain strangled James Kirk. They all knew James Kirk. Most of the girls either loved him openly or harbored a deep affection for him underneath a sarcastic exterior. The guys weren't as fond, but still respected him, though whether because he had a record for most girls in one night or because he held the record for passing the Kobayashi Maru, no one could be quite sure.

Spock's breath came in short, quick gasps as he struggled to maintain his grip on Jim's windpipe. He locked gazes with the suffocating man, watched impassively as the life and fight drained out of his eyes.

Through the silence in the room came one, imperative syllable, falling from the lips of Sarek.

"Spock!"

The word seemed to shake the caveman from Spock's system. He looked up, seeming almost surprised to find himself strangling James T. Kirk. With a self conscious shrug, he released his choke hold and stood up straight. Jim coughed, wheezing and choking as air flowed back through his crushed air passageways. Spock looked around the room, suddenly completely aware of the attention he had from the crew of the Enterprise. A few steps, and he was standing in front of where Doctor McCoy was crouched over Devon's prostrate body.

"Doctor..." he said softly. "I am...no longer fit for duty. I hereby...relinquish my command on the grounds that I have been..."

He paused for a long time.

"Emotionally compromised. Please note the time and date in the ship's log."

And he walked out of the room.

* * *

_Beep beep beep. Beep. _

Bones pulled out his communicator with a sigh, flipping it open with a dismissive gesture of disinterest.

"What in the ruddy heck do you want?" he snapped into the machine. The caller was Uhura, who replied with a hurt tone.

"Captain Spock wants you on the bridge," she informed him. "And there's no reason to be so unfriendly."

With a click, the connection was severed. After stowing his communicator in his pocket, rolling his eyes to high heaven and muttering some less-than-kind things about Spock under his breath, McCoy moseyed on over to the lift. He barked a few orders over his shoulder with such ferocity that any guard dog would have been proud to hear it. The lift arrived with a soft ping. Bones stepped onto it and muttered, "bridge." The decks whizzed past and he was halfway to his destination when the lift came to a sudden halt and opened its doors.

In the newly made entry way stood an old, gray haired Vulcan. McCoy inspected the alien with interest, as something about him was vaguely familiar.

"I am Sarek, father of Spock," the Vulcan introduced himself. Bones could have slapped himself in the face. Of course! How could he miss family resemblances like _that_?

"Leonard McCoy," Bones replied. "Chief Medical Officer. Just call me McCoy. Everyone else does."

The lift closed its doors and continued its ascent to the bridge. The two occupants of the small enclosure stood silently, and in McCoy's case, awkwardly. How was one to make small talk with a Vulcan? Did one make small talk? And if you did, what were you supposed to talk about?

Too late to worry about that now. They were at the bridge, just waiting for the doors to open.

They slid apart with a quiet hiss. Bones had only two seconds to see that Jim was alive before-

WHAM!

McCoy watched in horror as Jim was punched in the face with a devastatingly powerful right hook, and then closed his gaping mouth as Devon was dumped on the ground. Without wasting another second, Bones ran over to the girl and crouched over her, pulling out his tricorder and taking readings faster than anyone should be able to.

The results that came up on his instruments were ambiguous. But no time to worry about that now. Her heart, which was beating (at best) one time every thirty seconds. That needed to be stabilized immediately.

Drawing out a small hypo that he always carried with him, Bones loaded a large dose of one of the strongest steroids he possessed, desperately hoping that it would jump start her heart again. It did.

There was a collective gasp from the room, and Bones looked up. Spock was strangling Jim. That didn't surprise McCoy much, but it did worry him. There wasn't really a logical reason for Spock to be strangling Jim. So why would he-

"SPOCK!"

Sarek spoke up, his voice strong and clear in the silent room. The captain released Jim, who wheezed and floundered around before choking down a few lungfuls of air.

Spock glanced around himself, and Bones almost felt sorry for the man. All he had tried to do was help, and now here he was, humiliated in front of his crew and his father.

"Doctor..." Spock said softly, addressing Bones. "I am no longer fit for duty...I hereby relinquish my command on the ground that..."

Bones studied the Vulcan face before him. If he hadn't just tried to kill both of his best friends, he might feel a certain kinship with Spock. But he may have just _killed _Devon, his...friend. Crush? No. Friend.

"I have been emotionally compromised. Please not the time and date in the ship's log."

Spock walked out of the bridge. The silence which had taken its hold on the mouths of everyone continued its reign of power until someone broke it.

"You couldn't keep her alive, could ya' buddy boy?" Bones growled at Jim, who looked vaguely annoyed.

"Don't blame me, blame Sporker. He's the one who threw us off the effing ship. She's dead, isn't she?"

The words took the whole room by surprise. Just like Jim had a reputation, Devon also had a reputation that preceded her more than a disgusting stink precedes a skunk. "Dead + Devon" in the same sentence just didn't equate.

"As dang near dead as anyone can get while still being alive, Jim," McCoy replied, voice almost choked. Everyone stared. Was Leonard McCoy, the gruffest of all the doctors in the school, who was known for being calm and collected at every turn...he was about to cry? "She's in a coma. Probably'll never wake up."

Jim felt his heart sink. So it was worse than death. At least, if she had been dead, there could have been a remembrance ceremony. Devon could have been remembered as the kind of person she was, not a drooling comatose idiot on life support.

The news was terrible. It made him want to cry, then to go beat the bloody brains out of Spock's skull in revenge.

But no one let him do that. Jim was in control of the ship now. It was his duty. He was not emotionally compromised by the situation at hand, and he was going to do everything in his power to avenge his friend's fate.

"Great," someone from the back of the room said. "Now we're down a captain and have no dang first officer to replace him."

Jim took a breath and squeezed Dev's hand. He looked at McCoy. "Take her down to sickbay."

"What about the effing ship, Jim?" the doctor retorted.

"I'll take control." He got up and strode confidently to the captain's chair, sitting down.

"WHAT?" seemed to be the general consensus of the room. Sulu spoke up, informing the room that, "Captain Pike made him first officer before he left."

"You've got to be kidding me," Uhura muttered to herself, walking over from where she had been handing a PADD to one of the technical officers in the front of the room past the captain's chair. "I sure hope you know what you're doing..._captain._"

Jim looked at her, and back at Bones, who was gently picking Devon off the floor and apparently thinking that no one was looking, carefully pushing a few stray strands off her face and gazing down like her closed eyes like they held the secrets to the universe. _Maybe for him...they do, _Jim thought before turning his attention back the communications officer_. _

"You know, Uhura...so do I."

* * *

**And...it's been way way way too long. I wish I could say that this is the last time I'm going to do this, but to be honest, I'm human (SHOCKER, I know!) and I have problems/homework and...Sometimes I don't have time to take a shower or sleep, which is gross I know, but the honest truth. I love you guys to pieces, but right now I'm completely overloaded.**

**On a more positive note, I am REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY sorry for keeping you on that disgustingly cruel cliffhanger for A MONTH. I feel terrible =/ Now, I promise, there is a good reason this chapter is late. I got sick in the UK for two weeks with strep, had a 106 degree fever which is...I think like 42 degrees celsius, though I could be mistaken. So I came back from the UK after two weeks and was sick for another week at home, meaning I missed this exam and...lots of work. I'm almost caught up now, so things should be going back to normal. But I'm in a reproduction of the Sound of Music, so between that and training for figure skating, I have no time. Sorry again =/**

**Anyway, I want to know what you thought of this chapter. I've been trying to write it for FOREVER, but the words didn't come, and the style was really inconsistent. If it's awful...do tell. If it's wonderful...say something nice. If you want to strangle me for the delay, send a Spock-like strangle via a review :) **

**LLAP TO EVERYONE!**

**-Owly**


	22. Chapter 22: The In Between

McCoy walked to the lift slowly, staring down at Devon, inanimate in his arms. There wasn't a hint of life there. Not even the barest flicker. It was as if she were dead.

"I keep losing you," he thought quietly as he waited for the lift doors to open. "And you'd better come back this time."

At the thought that he could perhaps actually lose his best friend permanently, Bones was galvanized into action. The lift doors swooshed open, and totally ignoring the chaos behind him as Jim announced his new captaincy, pulled out his communicator and calling for sickbay.

"Yes Doctor McCoy?" came a young voice through the speakers. Bones didn't even wait for the youngster to collect his thoughts before spewing out orders.

"I need a surgical support frame readied on a clean biobed as soon as I get down there," he barked. "As well as a hypo or two of melenex and topical anasthetic. Instruct Nurse Chapel to set up a neurological transmitter and have any emergency equipment on hand. When I walk through those doors, I want to walk right into surgery. Do you hear me?"

There was silence on the other end as, Bones presumed, the ensign was cringing. He rolled his eyes.

"I said, _do you hear me_?"

"Y-Yessir," the poor soul stuttered. "Right away."

"It'd better be," McCoy muttered.

* * *

Jim settled back in the captain's chair. Even with all the atrocities that had been committed in the past four hours, he could not help that small thrill of excitement flow through him as he realized that he, Jim Kirk, was the captain of the newest and best ship in the entire fleet.

It was a heady feeling.

But there was more important things to attend to, if he was going to avenge his best friend's possible death and rescue his captain.

Jim inspected the controls on the captain's chair and confidently punched one of them: a yellow button with one word printed beneath it- Broadcast.

"Attention crew of the Enterprise. This is James T. Kirk, acting captain. Commander Spock has recently resigned commission and advanced me to this position."

All around the ship, crew members stopped whatever it was that they were doing to look at each other with shock. Was it _the _James Kirk? The one who had been put on trial that very morning for cheating on a test? Was that even _legal_?

"I know you were all expecting to regroup with the fleet. I'm changing that order. We are currently set on a pursuit course of the enemy ship to Earth. I want all departments at battle stations and ready in ten minutes."

The bridge was suddenly very quiet. Authority seemed to ooze from every pore in Jim's body, a newfound confidence that suited him well.

"This may be a shock to many of you. For more than a few of us, the atrocities committed in the past few hours has cost us friends, family...loved ones...All I can ask of any of you is that each and every one of you continues to perform with the excellence demanded of this ship. In the end, either we're going down...or they are."

Kirk turned his ice cold gaze on every man on the bridge. A clear challenge had been issued. Were they good enough to hold up under his command? The bridge personnel looked back at their new captain, a similar question in their eyes. Was this ensign good enough to hold up _in _command?

"Kirk out." He severed the connection. Almost immediately, the room was in uproar.

"How in the _universe _did you beam aboard this ship?" spat Uhura immediately. "Where did the likes of _you_ find _transwarp technology_?"

Jim shrugged. "You know, that's sort of complicated and-"

"Don't you _dare _patronize me, James T. Kirk!" The fiery officer replied. "Do I look simple to you?"

Sulu, not to be outdone and equally curious (if not equally enraged), spoke up. "I'm a PhD in astrophysics- whatever it is, I think I can keep up."

Chekov looked like he wanted to say something, but didn't, instead turning to his controls and staring at them morosely.

"No. No, I- hey!" Kirk said. "I'm the captain! I don't have to tell anyone _anything. _Let's just put that behind us and agree to the fact that I didn't sell my soul to the klingons to get onto this ship."

"You smell like you did," muttered Uhura. The captain pretended not to hear.

"How can you be arguing right now?" he asked scathingly. "We have one priority: to find a way to catch up with that ship and make sure our planet isn't destroyed in the process. Sulu?"

Uncomfortably, the pilot shook his head. "There's not a chance. They're going to be in a geosynchronous orbit around Earth in a little over forty minutes. At this warp speed, we'll never make it in time."

Jim looked at Scotty, who had somehow found a towel in all the drama. "Our Chief engineer was killed during the attack. Can you fill in for him?"

The engineer looked absolutely thrilled. "Yes SIR!" He said. "Lemme just get some proper clothes on, and I'll be right at it."

"Brilliant. Now, listen up everybody!" Kirk addressed the whole room. "Everyone is aware of the situation with the Romulan ship?"

Murmured assents from all personnel.

"Good. I am opening the floor to each and every idea that anyone has about a way to take down that ship. Understood?"

More nods. Jim stood, straightening his shirt.

"Where are you going?" Uhura asked suspiciously. "Don't you have a _ship _to run?"

For a moment, Jim's eyes were filled with grief, only to be replaced with cold calculations. He stared at the beautiful woman for a second, but ignored her question. "Sulu, take the con. I'll be back in fifteen minutes. I want at least three viable strategies when I get back. If you need me, I'll be in sickbay."

* * *

_Anger. Fear. Revulsion. Humiliation. Love. Hatred. _

Spock breathed in, then breathed out again.

_Anger. Hatred. Jealousy. Stress. A burning desire to strangle James T. Kirk once again._

A muscle twitched in Spock's neck. The meditation was doing nothing for his turmoiled feelings. As he reached that conclusion, he opened his eyes and unfolded his legs from underneath him.

Logic was not coming. It eluded him, taunting him from the edges of his consciousness. Rational thought did not exist anymore, only anger- a deep, blinding anger- that covered his mind like a smog.

The experience was uncannily like those days when he had been unsure of his future during his childhood. The young Vulcans at school had never been kind to him, never shown him the courtesy he had strived to show them. He had learned to control his feelings to a certain degree then. But not enough, apparently.

They had called his father a traitor, his mother a whore.

It had been unforgivable.

The anger that had for so long lain dormant had bubbled up and exploded out of him. For the first time in his life, Spock had lost control of his feelings. The experience was such that he had clamped down on his own mind for years and years, never allowing any sign of emotion show in his daily life.

But now things were different.

Somehow, that _girl_, Nyota, had crept into his life and created in him another feeling- one of those danged emotions- something undeniably happy. If she was around, he was content. Her companionship was delightful, and he craved it. While many of the students at the Academy- as Spock had observed it, at least- craved only physical love, whatever he shared with Nyota was much more intimate.

And then there was the duet of James T. Kirk and Devon Tstill. Neither of them were very likely friends, but somehow, fate had thrown them together. One, a delinquent genius who had grown up at the hands of abusers and idiots. The other, the daughter of a relatively well known intergalactic mafia leader. When the father had been captured and sentenced, his two children had been given to the government for schooling. Now, fifteen years later, the girl had never grown out of her father's ways. That much was obvious.

Together, they created the ultimate annoyance for Spock. They had humiliated him repeatedly, stripping him down to the monster that he had for so long kept caged within. And now he was broken, a mere shell of the great, logical and intelligent man he had once been.

Spock was jolted from his thoughts by a knock on the door.

"Please do not disturb me!" he called, and closed his eyes for more meditation. The door slid open anyway, and Spock looked up to see his father standing in the doorway.

"Spock," Sarek said, moving forward. Uncharacteristic worry lit his eyes. Spock stood as well, and the two met in the middle of the room. Sarek looked at his son for a long moment.

"You have a great burden on your shoulders," he said at last. "One that not many are required to bear."

His son said nothing. "Speak your mind, Spock."

"That would be unwise."

"What is necessary is never unwise."

"I have made no progress," the Starfleet officer said softly. Sark tilted his head, not immediately understanding.

"You speak as a human," he said mildly, almost teasingly. But it was the wrong thing to say. Spock tore away from his father's gaze and walked over to a table, sitting down.

"This is the problem," he explained. "I feel as conflicted as I once did as a child. I am not Vulcan, I am not human. I do not belong in either culture."

"You will always be a child of two worlds, Spock. I am grateful for this. For you." Sarek sat down opposite his son.

"I have a great anger towards the one who took Mother's life. One that I cannot control."

His father gently placed a hand on his shoulder, a gesture of affection that was generally against normal Vulcan parenting codes. If Spock had been looking at him then, he would have seen a weary father comforting his son.

"I would think," said Sarek, almost as if speaking to himself. "That she would say 'Do not try to.'"

After another moment of silent thinking, he continued. "You asked me once why I married your mother."

Spock looked up.

"I married her because I loved her." Sarek looked at his son. His son looked back.

"Thank you father," Spock whispered, returned to his childhood memories for a few moments. "I know now what I must do."

* * *

McCoy sat next to Devon's bed dejectedly. Nurse Chapel stood beside him, Jim beside her.

"I don't know what could've been wrong, Jim," Bones was saying. "Physically, everything's on the mend. Gave her a shot of adrenaline myself to keep her heart pumping, fixed the broken ribs and the skull fracture, stopped the internal bleeding, and pieced her leg back together. But even when her body is fixed up, her mind isn't responding."

"What about her leg?" replied his friend, more for a topic of conversation than interest.

"Huge sucker marks, oozing green pus," the doctor said blandly. "Quite delightful."

"Bones...you do realize that she's not really...uh, human?"

McCoy looked up at Nurse Chapel. "You can go do something now," he ordered brusquely. The girl nodded and walked away.

"Yes, Jim, I do," he responded in a hushed tone. "She's Romulan...And...well you should know that there's a good chance she sold us out to the same ones who attacked Vulcan."

"Romulan? But-"

"Her anatomy matches that of either Vulcan or Romulan, but what Vulcan would want to mate with a human?"

"I'm sure they'd reason it out somehow or another."

"Think about it. We've befriended a traitor."

The young captain put his head in his hands, lost for words. How had he not seen it? "No, that's not the answer."

_No. _

"It's logic, Jim. Even Spock would agree with me, curse his pointy ears." McCoy laid a hand on his shoulder.

Every logical choice pointed to the truth in the doctor's words. But something in Jim- that same intuition that Devon had so many times been impressed with- told him that there was something they really were missing.

Suddenly, Jim had an idea.

"Bones! You know she's an telekinetic, right? Some voodoo with touching people- she touched my arm, and I could feel her emotions, even hear her thoughts. She acted like it was accidental. From what I picked up, it wasn't on purpose, just whenever she touched someone or someone touched her, their minds were melded momentarily. So...I think her mind is lost somewhere in the recesses of itself. She's lost in her own skull."

A new light dawned in McCoy's eyes. He had heard of stuff like that before. "It's a known mental condition for telepaths. Telinterography. And I know how to fix it too."

"You do?"

"Yeah. Let's just hope it works on mixed race aliens."

* * *

**Yo peeps! Long time no talk! So...yeah. I have excuses, but I feel like you wouldn't accept them. :'( I'm really sorry, but hey...here's to hoping that my Muse for this story will continue to bless me with wonderful plot lines, twists, and fun stuff like that. :) **

**Please review to tell me how much you hate me!**

**-Owly**


	23. Chapter 23: Plans

**Sorry it's short, sorry it's a lot of filler, sorry it's taken so long. :'( Enjoy...as much as you can. **

* * *

"Scotty teh' Captain Kirk," he spoke into the communicator, still gazing in horror at the mess. "These engines are nuthin' but trouble! I'm sorry tah' say, but it would take 'bout a week tah' fix the main reactor core!"

"Just do the best you can, Scotty. I need full power to shields and weapons right now, and as much as you can pump into the engines. I'll be back on the bridge in five." Jim shut communications without even a "good luck."

"Eh, touchy," muttered the engineer. "Ee's up to his elbows, and no mistake."

And he set to work. The remaining engineers who had been placed under his command were skeptical at first. After all, the man had been stuck on Delta Vega as punishment for a transporter malfunction, hadn't he? If he couldn't work a transporter, he obviously couldn't fix an antimatter core.

But Scotty hadn't earned his phD in astrophysics, engineering, and mechanics for nothing. Within twenty of minutes of shouting, plenty of good natured cussing, and a small bottle of scotch, the reactor was running at 65%. A miracle, by all counts. And the crew had learned more in those twenty minutes than they had in most of their courses at the Academy.

"And that, lads, is how you restart an antimatter-matter reaction chamber with yer bare hands," Scotty was saying with a satisfied smirk to the crew. They watched in awe as the lights of the engine flickered on and began to run self diagnostics. The chief engineer wiped his hands on the towel that he had been carrying around since the episode on the bridge, and pulled out his communicator.

"Scotty to Captain Kirk," he said and waited. There was no response. Miffed, Engineer Scott sent a message to the bridge saying that the systems were as close to working as they'd ever be.

"Good work, Engineer Scott," sighed Uhura. "When you're done cleaning up down there, can you come up to the bridge? We need input."

* * *

Chekov. Poor, young, naive, and all too responsible Chekov. Every passing moment was pure torture, as self-hate and criticisms flowed in a steady stream from his subconscious, through his conscious thoughts, and into his deepest fears. The terrors he had once felt as a child- those of failure, of disgrace- came back to him in full force, fed by the obliteration of Vulcan and the loss of Spock's mother.

Even so, those short three years in Starfleet Academy had not been wasted on the brilliant youth. If anything, they had taught him to be brave in the face of his deepest fears and spearhead an attack against them with all the strength of his quite formidable mind.

"From our scans of the Narada," Sulu was saying. "We estimate that there are over 900 people on that ship, including the captain. It's a pretty gigantic thing of a ship if I ever saw one, so searching it to rescue the captain would be difficult."

"Do we have anyzhing? Any scans of the peeple of zhee sheep?" inquired Chekov.

"A few. Nothing too specific. What are you thinking?"

The Russian boy didn't respond, but bent over his workspace with a digipen and a PADD, scribbling formulas furiously.

"I zhink..." he murmured, then cleared his throat. "I zhink zhere is a way to surprise zhee Narada."

* * *

Devon was ticked off. As far as she could tell, everything was black.

**Pitch freaking black.**

And it made her freaking angry. Of all the half brained, Klingon things that could have happened, it was this. What were the chances?

Slim. They had been slim chances. This type of mental lockdown, so to speak, happened to one in one thousand Vulcans, and at that, usually the sickly, unwell ones who weren't going to live very long anyway.

Everything bad happened to her. Everything.

The only thing was that, this blackness wasn't all bad. If she woke up from her telepathic prison, the pain of the world rushing back would probably blow out the sensor on the biobed she was probably lying on. Assuming that Jim had managed to get them off that awful icy planet and back onto the Enterprise.

The thought of that kind of agony made Dev feel a little sick, or more accurately, made the part of her personality that manifested itself in the darkest corner of her mind's prison feel sick.

That was the thing about pain. Thinking about any kind of pain made her feel like vomiting, but when it came to actually experiencing it, she could handle it just as well as Jim.

Suddenly through the darkness came a slight whining sound, like the sound machinery makes when its idling- just enough to be noticed, but high pitched and soft enough to stay on the edges of consciousness.

The noise cut through the projection of Devon like a hot steak knife through butter. She winced and staggered, but stayed upright.

It grew louder. Screaming in her subconscious, Dev collapsed to the black floor and writhed in agony as she was slowly absorbed into her dark surroundings.

* * *

Scotty strode boldly into the bridge, looking around almost as if he were captain.

"All right people," he said. "Any ideas? We need to get the captain off that ship ASAP!"

Sulu waved him over. "Chekov here has something."

Flushing, the Russian youth quickly pushed his calculations over onto Sulu's screen. "Eef my telemetry eez correct, we should be able to pass by zhe Narada and hide behind zheese moon of Jupiter's. Zhe magnetic distortion would conceal zhe Enterprise's output and we would be inwisible."

Sulu nodded, smiling. "That's brilliant, Chekov. I'll run the numbers myself. But once we're there, that's a frickin' huge ship. There are a million places the captain could be held."

"I zhought of zhat as well," the young man replied. "Using our sheep's sensors, and weeth quite a lot of luck, we ken get within range of zhe sheep's shields, and run a scan. Zhe scan weel tell us eef zhere are non-Romulan life forms on zhe sheep. Zhere should be only one- Zhe keptin! Eef we are within zhe shields and hidden by zhe moon, we ken beam him up."

"Will that work? Seems pretty risky to me. Getting into that position would take enormous skill," pointed out Sulu.

Chekov looked at his friend, eyes wide. "We have zhe best pilots in zhe fleet," he said. "Eet weel work out."

Sulu nodded, but Scotty frowned. "And disablin' the drill, boy? How about that?" The Russian kid furrowed his brow for a few moments, thinking. He grew paler.

"I...I am wery sorry, sir. Zhe only way I ken zhink of disabling zhe drill ees...going aboard zhe Narada herself."

* * *

Jim watched tensely as Bones attached two small electrodes to Devon's temples. They were attached by small metal clamps to a black box. On this box was a plain display perhaps nine square inches large, with three dials and a red button.

"I hope that isn't as dangerous as it looks," commented the acting captain nervously. "Because if you mess this up, there could be a court martial."

McCoy snorted, twiddling the dials and checking the screen. "Like there won't be already, idiot." He stopped and looked at Jim. "There. If this works like it should, I'll press the red button and send out a high frequency brain wave that resonates on the same level as Dev's. That should jolt her out of whatever mental jail she's locked in."

"How do you know that it does?"

"Does what?"

"Resonates on the same level, or whatever gibberish you just spouted." He waved a hand in the air. "You're starting to sound like Sporkers."

Bones ignored the juvenile appendage to the question and replied, "She's not human and she's not Vulcan and she sure as heck isn't Betazoid. I didn't know what to set it to."

"And so...You did this how?"

"I guessed."

"I thought you were a doctor, Bones. You can't do better than guessing?"

McCoy rolled his eyes, took a breath, and punched the button. "I'm a freaking doctor, Jim, not God."

* * *

"Where's the bloody captain when you need him?" Scotty sighed. Uhura heard him and smirked to herself.

"Down in sickbay, making sure his girlfriend isn't dead," she replied callously.

"Exactly right, Uhura," came a voice from the lift. "And I suppose that this is a good as time as any to tell you that she didn't make it."

Stares from all around. James Kirk walked down slowly from the lift and sank into the captain's chair. Silence. Then- "Keptin, what happened?"

Chekov was looking, wide eyed at the captain. To his credit, Jim replied gently.

"There are only so many times a body and brain can be rebooted. Her body was fine, but her mind was gone. And her body left soon afterwards." He swallowed hard. "She's dead."

* * *

**Sorry this chapter was awful, sorry she's dead...Review or something, because I feel like you all will kill me. Don't give up hope, however...Things will get better. It is always darkest before the dawn! :)**

**LLAP**

**-Owly**


	24. Chapter 24: Electricity

**I've considered about five different ways this story can diverge, right about here. If I do a few, more people die. If I do others, less do. If I do one certain one, things get really, really boring. So I decided to go out on a limb and start changing EVERYTHING. This is the result. Go on and hate if you want to, I think this is the best thing that can happen to this story right now. **

* * *

_Altogether, _he grumbled to himself. _The thing was worthless. Nothing can really estimate how well you function in the face of the loss of someone you love. _

The word startled him. Love? Had he ever loved Dev? It was ironic. Jim had never felt real affection for anyone, except maybe his mother and brother, but they, like everyone else in his life, had left him.

_Am I even capable of love?_

The answer was obvious. Yes. He was. Devon had been his dear sister and confidante, a beautiful and delightful companion. There had been love in their relationship, but no passion.

And Bones. The prickly and sensitive doctor was a better brother than George had ever been.

The last thing that came to mind was a surprise, even to Jim himself. The ship. That was his strongest attachment. Every breath taken in the captain's chair, ever moment he was able to _do _something to help- it was worth more than a million breaths on Earth. But he had been so helpless with Devon. Nothing could have been done, nothing had been done, and now-

Kirk snorted, clenching and unclenching his jaw. Enough with the self pitying thoughts. The crew came first. Always.

Looking around, the captain decided that everyone was thoroughly demoralized. Loss of life had taken its toll on them, and though most of them were still in the stages of shock, the quicker, sturdier ones were making their way through shock and into grief. The ship's counselors would be working overtime for weeks.

But Earth was in danger, and the Enterprise was in poor condition to do anything other than stop and watch as the planet crumbled and turned inside out.

"Keptin?"

Jim jerked from his thoughts. A blue eyed, fresh faced boy with a shock of curly hair was standing in front of him, a PADD clenched in one hand, a look of unhealthy concern spread across his features. Kirk recognized him as the one who had pulled Dev from that pod just in the nick of time. He smiled at the boy in what he hoped was a reassuring fashion.

"Keptin, I zhink I have a solution to our problems."

The smile turned into a grin. "Well then, uh...I don't know your name. Sorry."

"Pavel Andreiewich Chekov," replied the ensign, shrugging uncomfortably and getting right back to the point. "Would you like to see my telemetry?"

At that moment, Leonard McCoy strode through the doors and onto the bridge. He nodded at Jim, face carefully devoid of any emotion.

"Bones, Chekov here has some idea about jumping that ship. Care to listen in?"

The doctor shrugged, but walked over anyway. Nervous, Chekov explained his idea, pointing to a bunch of minuscule squiggles on his PADD. He claimed that they were math, but to McCoy, they looked more like chicken scratches.

"Hold on a minute there son," he said just as the Russian youth was going over the final stages of his daring plan to board the Narada. "How old are you?"

"Sewenteen sir!" chirped Pavel. Bones rolled his eyes.

"Wonderful," he said to Jim. "We're entrusting our safety to a teen who doesn't even shave yet."

Chekov seemed to shrink, eyes downcast. He was about to say something when another rather important person notified them of his presence.

"I can confirm Mister Chekov's telemetry. His idea is valid, and highly ingenious. A preliminary scan, followed by the beam up of the captain and the transport of an away team to dismantle the drill is dangerous, but possible. I would like to volunteer myself to board the ship."

Everyone looked up, startled. Spock, much calmer and more ready to talk, was standing behind them, inspecting the "chicken scratches" displayed on Chekov's PADD, while the boy allowed himself a small smile. Such praise from Spock was rare and it boosted his confidence perhaps one hundred fold.

"Why for the love of a Klingon would you want to do that?" the acting captain asked belligerently. Unconcerned, Spock waved the accusation aside.

"I am half human, and as Vulcan is now destroyed, Earth is the only home I have left. We Vulcans are the closest genetically to the Romulans. This would give us an advantage over them."

A logical answer.

"Great!" Jim exclaimed, standing up. "I'll accompany you."

More silence. This time, more in an awkward '_Captain that's really unorthodox and we want to tell you that you really can't because it's not allowed, but no one wants to be the jerk to tell you' _sense than anything else.

Of course, Spock spearheaded the whole operation in his usual fashion.

"I would cite regulation saying that such an act is illegal, but knowing you, you would most likely ignore it."

Jim grinned his trademark smirk. "Great!" he repeated. "We're getting to know each other a little better." Slapping the Vulcan on the arm in a show of camaraderie, he turned to Scotty and began issuing orders. Within minutes, the Enterprise was on her way to Jupiter under the expert direction of Sulu, Scotty was getting the transporters back in peak condition, and Chekov was helping Jim sort out the finer details of their strategy. Things were looking up.

But between the explanations and planning, dark looks and vague expressions crossed every crew member's face. The morale had been raised, yes. But, Jim wondered, was it enough to give them the drive to defeat the Romulans?

* * *

On board the Narada, Nero was growing antsy. He paced up and down in front of his captain's chair while muttering angrily in a mix of Romulan, English, and Vulcan, sporadically throwing sharp or heavy objects at the walls. Constantly playing on one arm of his chair was the small hologram of his wife, smiling and waving.

In an inexplicable rage, he went down to Pike shouted at the unconscious captain for awhile. Seemingly out of nowhere came the girl.

"Come now, Nero," she said calmly. "He won't wake up."

Nero rounded on her, eyes blazing. "Why not?"

"He was screaming. A real riot. Something about a Betazed and whiskey and a guy named Jim. I gave him a shot of something or other. It didn't kill him, so I suppose it was a sedative."

With a roar, Nero pulled out bulky Romulan disruptor. His thumb flipped the settings, and the end glowed a threatening white hot.

"Get out of my sight," he hissed, chest heaving with barely suppressed anger. "You could still have useful connections and I don't want to kill you. But I will."

The girl froze and slowly backed away into the shadows.

* * *

In the midst of all the numbers, physics laws, Starfleet regulations, and other bewildering streams of numbers or letters, Bones was confused. Sure, warp theory and tactics had been required at the Academy, as the CMO was in line for captainship if things went really wrong. But this was more than theoretical problems that he had memorized the answers to. Medicine came easy to Leonard McCoy- not three dimensional chess. And definitely not math. Or physics. He was a doctor for crying out loud! Not Spock, or Jim, or anyone else. Leonard McCoy, the doctor who had killed a girl. Not only that, but the only girl who had ever loved him for who he was.

Bones dropped his head into his hands.

"Doctor!" Jim's voice cut through McCoy's muddled thoughts. "We have almost reached the optimum position to take those scans of the Narada. The best man for the job of finding one human on a ship of Romulans would be...you."

"It would take hours to look at every humanoid on that ship," he replied, gesturing in the air with a rolling motion. "I need a team."

"Go ahead and make one. I'm not stopping you."

McCoy nodded and named a few people he was sure could help: "Nurses Chapel, Endland, and Smitherson down in sickbay, Doctor Lily Thrush also down in sickbay, I could use Chekov-whiz-boy too. He seems bright."

The needed team was soon assembled at science stations in transport room 3 around Dr. McCoy, tense and waiting for the green light to begin scanning.

After a few long minutes of quietly intense maneuvering, Sulu leaned back from his controls, wiping the sweat from his face with a sleeve.

"We're in position, captain," he said to Jim. Immediately, Kirk sent the message to Bones: Begin scanning.

The doctors and Chekov immediately began searching their designated parts of the Narada. Seconds crawled by. Romulans differed from humans in a few ways, but the most evident was the higher copper content in their blood, as well as a dangerously low blood pressure. It was impossible to screen every single humanoid on that ship, but it had to be done. Chekov had come up with a brilliant little bit of coding that did half of the testing in the computer, only giving them a few perhaps stranger Romulans or other aliens that were on that ship that did not meet certain parameters. And, of course, Captain Pike.

After five agonizing minutes of silence, Doctor Lily Thrush stood up, looking close to tears.

"I found one human. It has to be the captain!" She quickly sent the coordinates to the ensign running the transporter. But then-

"Doctor McCoy!" It was Lily again. "There's another human in that room, sir. I don't know which one's the captain and which one's-"

Bones had no time to debate. In a truly electric moment, he turned to the transporter operator and barked "Beam them both up!"

Nodding, the man locked onto the coordinates and hit the energize button.

* * *

The captain was barely awake. There were permanent patches of blackness at the edges of his vision all the time now. Whatever creature they had shoved down his throat was destroying all his nervous system, causing his hands and feet to twitch constantly. Pain was an old friend by now, warming his insides just as effectively as a Romulan disruptor.

But then- what was that? A soft hand on his wrist, cooling the fire that burned incessantly on his skin.

"You have a fever," whispered the girl. Pike cursed at her.

"Traitor!"

"I am no traitor," the girl replied sharply. "I have served my family to the very end, through this hell that the captain has put us through."

"You are a traitor, Devon Tstill. I hope you die."

Then, something very strange happened. Pike was looking at the girl, whose pointy ears were very prominent underneath a layer of brown hair and whose face had once been beautiful but was now showing subtle signs of age- when she began to glimmer. Not the kind of glimmer a young, twenty something gives off after a night of light drinking and too many laughs, but with real, tangible light. As if she were being transported. _But that's impossible..._

A tingle started in Pike's toes, a virus that swarmed up his legs and over his torso. White light and the tickle of transport finally convinced the captain that he was, indeed, being rescued.

"It's about time," he whispered, surrendering to the white light of oblivion.

* * *

**So, I've been up to midnight or later consistently for the past month. w00t. But, on the bright side, all the programs I wrote work except for one, and I fix that tomorrow before turning it in. I'm sorry I haven't written more. I'm a bad person and all that. But it wasn't six months this time! **

**Review telling me how bad of a person I am, because really...I am.**

**LLAP**

**-Owly **


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